About 200 people were evacuated from an oil platform in the North Sea on Saturday as workers tried to contain an oil leak that occurred during maintenance work, officials said.

“Oil is leaking from one of the shafts of the Statfjord A platform in the North Sea,” operator StatoilHydro ASA said. “The situation is serious and confused.”

Two people were exposed to gas during the incident, but none was seriously injured, said company spokesman Ola Morten Aanestad.

Oil was being discharged into the sea from the platform for safety reasons and repair vessels were heading to the area to contain the spill, the company said.

There were 217 people on the Statfjord A platform when the oil leak occurred, StatoilHydro said. Most of them were airlifted by rescue helicopters to nearby platforms Saturday morning, Aanestad said, adding that about 60 emergency workers remained on Statfjord A.

StatoilHydro said the oil leak occurred during maintenance work on a pipe in one of the platform’s three shafts and that oil was leaking from one or several storage cells. The storage cells hold 1.3 million barrels of oil, the company said.

The platform began production in 1979 and is one of three being operated by StatoilHydro in the Statfjord field, located about 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of the coastal city of Bergen.

The company said Statfjord is one of the oldest producing fields on the Norwegian continental shelf and the largest oil discovery in the North Sea.