The owner of the Kolskaya oil platform that sank last year with more than 50 crew members on board fired its general director Monday, and its chief engineer resigned.
"Igor Melekhov has been dismissed as general director by the decision of the yearly shareholders meeting. Viktor Shevchuk will occupy this post from now on," Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka, or AMNGR, spokeswoman Viktoria Tretyakova told Interfax.
Chief engineer Leonid Bordzilovsky, who was in contact with the Kolskaya crew on the day of the tragedy, gave notice effective Monday, Tretyakova confirmed.
Monday's personnel changes are not the first at the company since its drilling platform tipped over and sank in stormy waters in the Sea of Okhotsk on Dec. 18, 2011.
AMNGR fired its deputy general director and punished its deputy head of sea security after consulting with Murmansk transportation prosecutors in March.
The Kolskaya sinking, which claimed the lives of 53 out of the platform's 67 crew members, was the deadliest offshore accident the Russian oil industry has ever experienced.
