The Romanian oil & gas group OMV Petrom has been prosecuted for manslaughter after a child died due to a gas poisoning from one of the company’s pipelines.

The incident occurred in 2014 and the Romanian prosecutors recently sent the case to court.

The child died after playing in an area where OMV Petrom had a pipeline. He was discovered by some people who called the ambulance but it was too late. The forensic report shows that the acute poisoning was the child’s cause of death.

The area where the pipeline was located was not secured, nor marked, and the company should have done that, according to the prosecutors.

OMV Petrom representatives said that the company was not guilty and that it was an unhappy accident, reports local Profit.ro.

The company said that the accident took place near an oil rig located in a village near Ploiesti. According to OMV Petrom, an unidentified person left a valve open, which allowed the child to get into the rig’s basement, where he got intoxicated. The company said it was trying to find the person who opened the valve.

editor@romania-insider.com