 Story highlights One worker for Statoil/COSL killed when huge wave hits rig 
 
 BP and ConocoPhillips oil fields evacuated as barge drifts in violent seas 
 
 Barge became unattached while being towed by a tugboat in rough weather 
 
 (CNN) Violent weather in the North Sea killed an oil worker for a Norwegian firm and prompted oil companies to evacuate workers after a barge broke loose in the storm. Forced shut down 
 
 The strong winds tore the barge from its moorings and sent it towards BP's Valhall platform, located in the middle of the North Sea between Norway and the UK. This prompted the oil and gas company to shut down output and evacuate dozens of staff on board. ConocoPhillips also stopped production and evacuated crew from installations in the same area. A spokeswoman for the Rescue Coordination Centre for southern Norway told Reuters the barge eventually missed the BP platform by some two kilometres. "There are no other installations between the barge and the coast of Norway," Borghild Eldoen said. Image copyright AP Image caption The Norwegian sector is thought to contain 54% of the North Sea's oil reserves 
 
 "It is now up to the owners of the barge to stop it before it reaches the coast." Statoil, a Norwegian company, and COSL -- China Oilfield Services Limited -- issued a statement saying they had learned "with great sadness" that one person had died and two were injured when a wave broke over a drilling rig Wednesday. Production at the Troll gas field, operated by Statoil and Norway's largest, was not affected as the installation was a drilling rig, not a production facility, a Statoil spokesman said.
– BP says 150 people have been evacuated from its offshore oil platforms in the North Sea due to an unmanned barge drifting in rough seas toward the Valhall oil field. A company spokesman says the evacuees were taken to other oil fields as a precaution, and that 85 people remained on platforms in the Valhall field Thursday morning. He says a tugboat is trying to gain control of the barge, which broke from its anchor and started drifting amid strong winds and high waves late Wednesday. CNN reports that the 360-foot barge has begun drifting north, forcing ConocoPhillips to evacuate 145 workers from an oil field. Earlier, Norway's Statoil said one worker was killed and two were injured when a big wave slammed into a drilling rig Wednesday in the Troll field, also in the North Sea. A spokesman for Norway's coast guard tells the BBC that the wave that hit the workers' accommodation block on the rig must have been around 60 feet high. Two other workers were injured. The rig is now making its way back to Norway with more than 50 workers aboard. Another 50 were evacuated after the accident, and a Petroleum Safety Authority Norway spokeswoman tells Reuters that they had to be lifted off the platform because winds were too strong for a helicopter to land.