A jack-up drilling rig sank off the coast of Gabon on Saturday evening, and five of the 115 people on board remain unaccounted for, according to its owner, Borr Drilling. In a statement issued early Sunday, European time, the Bermuda-based contractor said an incident occurred “at approximately 20:37 local time on October 24, 2026 involving the Prospector 5 drilling rig while conducting jacking operations offshore Gabon in preparation for a planned drilling campaign” (Borr Drilling). That hour corresponds to 7:37 p.m. GMT, or 12:37 p.m. on Saturday on the U.S. West Coast. Reuters, in a report carried by The Star of Malaysia, relayed the statement under the headline that the rig “sinks offshore Gabon” with “five personnel missing” (Reuters via The Star).
“At the time of the incident, there were 115 personnel onboard the rig. A total of 110 individuals have been safely accounted for. Five individuals remain unaccounted for, with extensive search and rescue operations ongoing,” Borr said (Borr Drilling). The company says its onshore emergency response team has gone into action and that it works “with local authorities and our customer, BW Energy, to respond to the incident, support those affected, and search for missing personnel.” Chief executive Bruno Morand said: “We are deeply concerned for those who remain unaccounted for and everyone affected by this incident. Our immediate priority is supporting the ongoing search and rescue efforts and the welfare of all personnel involved” (Borr Drilling). Borr published a line for families seeking information: +44 (0)1224 087026.
Watch: footage shared from Mayumba on Saturday night
A video post on X from a Gabonese account named La Lettre Verte Gabon, published about three and a half hours after the time both companies give. It shows a brightly lit rig with a helideck at night, filmed from the deck of a nearby vessel. This desk could not verify where or when anyone filmed it, and the same clip circulates in other posts. If the embed does not load, it shows as a plain link.
View the @lalettreverte post on X
On the cause, Borr offers only a preliminary account: “Preliminary information indicates that the rig experienced a punch through event during preload activities, resulting in loss of stability and the subsequent sinking of the rig” (Borr Drilling). Jack-up rigs stand on legs lowered to the seabed; in its Norwegian rendering of the statement, the newspaper VG describes the event as one of the rig’s support legs suddenly sinking into the seabed while crews readied the rig (VG). Neither company has published an investigation finding, and this desk does not draw conclusions about cause beyond the companies’ own words.
BW Energy, the Oslo-listed oil producer that hired the rig, issued its own statement. It says the incident occurred “on the Dussafu Marine licence in Gabon at 20:37 local time on Saturday, 24 October 2026,” and that “during jacking operations in preparation for a planned drilling campaign, the rig experienced a loss of stability and subsequently sank” (BW Energy). The company counts 110 people safely accounted for “while five remain missing,” and says it supports the search “in close coordination with the drilling contractor Borr Drilling, relevant authorities and emergency responders” (BW Energy).
BW Energy adds that “production at the MaBoMo facility is shut down in accordance with standard procedure during ongoing drilling preparations,” and that “there has been no reported damage to the facility or related equipment, nor any accidental discharge of harmful substances to the sea from the facility” (BW Energy). That statement covers the MaBoMo platform; neither company says anything in the statements this desk read about fuel or other material aboard the rig itself. On its licence page, BW Energy describes the Dussafu licence as lying within the 850-square-kilometre Ruche Exclusive Exploitation Area, with an average water depth of 116 metres, and says production from MaBoMo flows through a 20-kilometre pipeline to the BW Adolo floating production vessel (BW Energy).
The rig had just begun a new assignment. On Oct. 15, BW Energy’s partner Panoro Energy, which holds a 17.5 percent interest in the Dussafu Marin permit, said “the Borr Prospector 5 jack-up drilling rig is now mobilising to the MaBoMo production platform from where it will shortly commence the planned MaBoMo Phase 2 drilling campaign,” comprising four new production wells in the Hibiscus and Hibiscus South fields (Panoro Energy). The trade site HMT News reported on Oct. 19 that Borr had received a binding letter of award from BW Energy in April 2026 covering four wells “with a minimum duration of 320 days” (HMT News).
Gabonese media reported the incident hours before the companies’ statements. La Presse Républicaine, a Gabonese news site, published at 00:49 on Sunday, local time, that the rig “aurait sombré” (“reportedly sank”) off Mayumba in the country’s south, citing a single source, and that five people “seraient également portées disparues” (“would also be reported missing”); it stressed that the information “restent toutefois à confirmer officiellement” (“still awaits official confirmation”) (La Presse Républicaine). The site placed the accident “aux environs de 19 heures” (around 7 p.m.), earlier than the 20:37 given by both companies, and wrote that a survivor in a video shared on social media had said everyone aboard had got off safely, an account the companies’ count of five unaccounted for contradicts (La Presse Républicaine; Borr Drilling).
Reports also differ on the day. Both companies put the incident on Saturday evening, and the Norwegian business site E24 writes that the rig sank “lørdag kveld” (Saturday evening) (Borr Drilling; BW Energy; E24). VG, citing Reuters, writes that the rig sank “søndag” (Sunday), while the Reuters report it cites says Borr “said on Sunday” that the rig sank (VG; Reuters via The Star). E24 notes that both Borr Drilling and BW Energy trade on the Oslo stock exchange, with market values of 12.5 billion and 17 billion Norwegian kroner respectively, and discloses that it wrote its text with the help of an AI tool (E24).
Several questions remain open as of this update: the identities and nationalities of the five missing people, the state of the search, what Gabonese authorities say, whether the rig or the remaining work on the Phase 2 campaign faces lasting damage, and what any investigation finds. Several Reuters mirrors blocked automated access, so this desk read Reuters via The Star; it found no public statement from Gabon’s government. This site covered an earlier vessel loss in the Strait of Hormuz.
Update · Oct 26, 2026, 4:08 AM PT: Reuters, in a report carried by gCaptain, quotes Sylvain Mayabi Binet, secretary general of Gabon’s National Organization of Petroleum Employees, as saying that one of the five people first listed as unaccounted for, an Indian national, has died, and that the four still missing include three Gabonese nationals and one other expatriate. Borr Drilling’s update of Oct. 26 does not mention a death: it says 110 of the 115 people aboard remain safe and accounted for, that search and rescue continues for the five who remain unaccounted for, and that the company has contacted their families. This desk has not seen company or government confirmation of the death. Correction: the lead photo caption paired the Oct. 25 posting date with the words “file photograph”; it now says the post dates from Oct. 25 and the photo, undated, shows the rig before the incident.