Gazprom says 20 workers at Bovanenkovo field in coronavirus scare, airlifted out

Twenty workers at the Gazprom Bovanenkovo gas field who had contact with a person infected with the coronavirus have been evacuated by helicopter, the Russian state-run gas firm said on Friday. Gazprom subsidiary Gazprom Dobycha Nadym said contact with the infected person occurred on a flight from Moscow to the city of Yekaterinburg on March 16.

The workers are in hospital, said a Gazprom spokesman, declining to comment on their state of health. Gazprom Dobycha Nadym said they would remain in isolation until March 30. On Thursday, the company said the workers had been quarantined at Bovanenkovo.

Production at the field, which feeds the Nord Stream pipeline and is a key source of domestic gas supplies, has been unaffected, Gazprom said.