Hundreds face evacuation from oil-rig off Norway

Nearly 400 workers were waiting Wednesday to be evacuated from a offshore platform off the coast of Norway after it began listing, the country's energy giant Statoil. "We plan to evacuate non-essential staff and are studying the best way to evacuate them by helicopter," spokesman Ola Anders Skauby told AFP, meaning most of the 374-strong team would be flown off the platform. The platform Floatel Superior, an offshore platform on the Njord hydrocarbon field, began listing early Wednesday morning due to a problem with a ballast, which controls buoyancy and stability. The platform was stabilised later, the spokesman said, but the company had decided to evacuate its staff as a precaution. "We normally have two levels of protection against leaks, and since there was just one left, we decided to evacuate non-essential personnel for security," Skauby said.