Five dead in the fire of the oil platform of Mexico, causing the production of Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 23 (Reuters) – Five workers were killed and six injured in Sunday’s fire on an offshore platform south of the Gulf of Mexico operated by Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) that reduced about a quarter part of Mexico’s oil production, according to the company. Monday.

The fire broke out when crews were performing maintenance work on the platform and the search for missing workers continues, Pemex CEO Octavio Romero told a news conference.

The platform remains out of operation, with about 421,000 barrels of oil lost daily and 125 wells offline, he said. Production loss was slightly lower than Reuters reported earlier Monday, citing a company document. Read more

The company plans to resume powering the facility and connected wells before Wednesday, with the goal of restoring gas and oil production later. Romero said the impact of the crash on Pemex’s monthly production and exports had not yet been estimated.

The heavily indebted Pemex has long had a history of safety at checkpoints and dozens of people have died in major accidents in the past. Still, the platform fire was one of the worst Pemex has suffered under the current government.

“There is no problem of lack of investment, there is no problem of lack of resources,” Romero said. “The oil industry is a risky industry. We have had accidents, which in number are less than in previous years.”

A fire at another Pemex platform in Campeche Bay caused by a submarine gas pipeline leak was dubbed a “fire eye” on social media due to the circular shape of the July flare. It took more than five hours to go extinct. Read more

A rapid decline in gas availability, used by Pemex to increase oil in its Ku-Maloob-Zaap fields, drove crude oil production in this cluster to nearly 275,000 bpd until early Monday at more than 719,000 bpd on on Sunday, a document seen by Reuters showed. Read more

Pemex’s total crude oil production was 1.69 million bpd in June.

Four of those killed in Sunday’s fire were from a contractor company, Mexican oil services company Cotemar, and one from Pemex, Romero said.

Pemex has said two people are still missing at the site. They are from another contractor company, previously called the Monitoring Office of Conditions and Integrity.

Pemex said it would investigate what caused the fire on the E-Ku-A2 platform, which is part of the Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex’s gas processing facility in Campeche Bay. The fire was brought under control on Sunday afternoon.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, who expressed grief over the incident at a morning press conference, has made the recovery of Pemex’s fortune one of his government’s top priorities.

Report by Ana Isabel Martinez, Stefanie Eschenbacher and Marianna Parraga; Edited by Sandra Maler and Peter Cooney

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