(Adds Total spokeswoman's comments, details on the dead and injured, changes dateline pvs PARIS) By Christian Tsoumou BRAZZAVILLE, May 10 (Reuters) - A fire at French oil major Total's <TOTF.PA> Nkossa offshore platform in Congo Republic killed two people and halted the field's 60,000 barrel-per-day production on Thursday, the company said. Congo's oil ministry and the company said an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the blaze, which started at around 0400 GMT on Thursday and was quickly extinguished. "There are two injured who have been taken to Pointe Noire: one Congolese and one Australian," a Total spokeswoman said. "It seems there was also a fishing vessel close to the platform ... We are conducting searches to see if there any missing people," she said. She did not say what the fishing vessel was doing near the platform. An oil ministry official said the two dead men were Congolese workers, while the two injured worked for a Norwegian drilling company, Seadrill. Congo Republic is sub-Saharan Africa's fifth-biggest oil producer after Nigeria, Angola, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Nkossa is the biggest oil field in the former French colony. Congo's oil production was around 270,000 barrels per day in 2006. Total produces about two-thirds of that figure and is the largest foreign investor in the country. (Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris)
