A crew member died in a fall from a chartered Greek LPG carrier at the end of August, Equinor has revealed.
The accident on the 7,200-cbm Eco Galaxy (built 2015), controlled by Harry Vafias-led StealthGas, was reported in the Norwegian oil major’s third-quarter safety results.
The ship was misnamed as the Exo Galaxy in the report.
Equinor’s executive vice president for safety, security & sustainability, Jannicke Nilsson, said the crew member went overboard from the ship on 30 August in Malaysia.
“The vessel was in operation for Equinor. This is a tragic incident affecting everyone involved and is a strong reminder that even though we see a positive safety trend we must keep focusing on safety in all our activities,” she added.
The Eco Galaxy was heading for loading operations in Malaysia.
A search-and-rescue operation was launched immediately, and the missing seafarer was found dead in the water on 1 September, Nilsson said.
“Equinor is in close dialogue with the Stealth Maritime shipping company, which is following up the next of kin locally. The incident is being investigated,” she added.
VesselsValue reports the ship was fixed to an unknown charterer in December 2021 for a year. This deal was then extended for another year at the end of 2022.
StealthGas has been contacted for comment.
Equinor’s report begins by saying its positive safety trend has continued.
Serious incidents reduced
“The number of serious incidents per million hours worked is still declining at the end of the third quarter, measured over the past 12 months,” it added.
As of 30 September, this frequency was 0.3.
Ten oil and gas leaks have been recorded in the past 12 months.
Equinor said it is continuing its work on preventing major accidents by focusing particularly on safety training of leaders and on e-learning courses that are also available to the company’s suppliers.
