Five workers were killed and six injured in Sunday’s fire on a platform in the southern Gulf of Mexico operated by Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) that cut about a quarter of Mexico’s oil production, the company said Monday.
The fire broke out as 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 service, with a loss of about 421,000 barrels of oil per day and 125 wells out of service, he said.
The company plans to resume power supply to the facility and connected wells by Wednesday, with the aim of restoring oil and gas production afterwards. The impact of the accident on Pemex’s monthly production and exports has not yet been estimated, Romero said.
Heavily indebted Pemex has long had a spotty safety record, and dozens of people have died in serious accidents in the past. However, the rig fire was one of the worst Pemex has suffered under the current administration.
“There is not a problem of lack of investment, there is not a problem of lack of resources,” Romero said. “The oil industry is a risky industry. We have had accidents, which in number are fewer than in previous years.”
A fire on another Pemex platform in the Bay of Campeche, caused by a leak in an underwater gas pipeline, was dubbed the “eye of fire” on social networks due to the circular shape of the July fire. It took more than five hours to extinguish.
A rapid decline in the availability of gas, used by Pemex to boost oil at its Ku-Maloob-Zaap fields, reduced crude production in that group to nearly 275,000 bpd as of early Monday from more than 719,000 bpd on Sunday.
Pemex’s total crude production was 1.69 million bpd in June.
Four of those killed in Sunday’s fire belonged to a contractor, Mexican oil services company Cotemar, and one to Pemex, Romero said.
Pemex has said two people who were at the site are still missing. They belong to another contractor, formerly called Bufete de Monitoreo de Condiciones e Integridad.
Pemex said it would investigate the cause of the fire on the E-Ku-A2 platform, part of the gas processing facilities at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex in the Bay of Campeche. The fire was brought under control on Sunday afternoon.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who expressed his regret over the incident at a morning press conference, has made the recovery of Pemex one of his government’s top priorities.
