Pemex platform fire kills one worker, injures 45

A fire at a shallow-water oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico has killed four workers, injured 16 and forced the evacuation of 300, Mexico’s state-owned oil company said Wednesday.

Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said on its Twitter account that the death toll had risen from one to four. In an earlier statement, the company said that two of the injured workers were in serious condition.

The fire broke out Wednesday at the Abkatun Permanente platform. Pemex said eight firefighting boats were trying to extinguish the flames. It was unclear whether any significant amount of oil had spilled into the Gulf.

Mexico’s Energy Security Agency said the injured were being treated at a hospital in Campeche, adding that the blaze “is being extinguished.”

The Abkatun platform is located in the Campeche Sound, near the coast of the states of Campeche and Tabasco.

It is further out to sea than the platform involved in the last severe fire in the area, the 2007 fire at the Kab 121 offshore rig.

That accident was caused by high waves that hit the rig, sending a boom crashing into an oil platform’s valve assembly. The accident killed at least 21 workers and the rig spilled crude and natural gas for almost two months.

Mexico’s worst major spill in the Gulf was in June 1979, when an offshore drilling rig in Mexican waters — the Ixtoc I — blew up, releasing 140 million gallons of oil.

It took Pemex and a series of U.S. contractors nearly nine months to cap the well, and a great deal of the oil contaminated Mexican and U.S. waters.

Several deadly accidents have occurred at Pemex facilities in recent years. In September 2012, a leak at a Pemex pipeline near the U.S. border exploded, killing 29 and injuring 46. In 2013, 32 people died and 121 were injured in a gas explosion at Pemex’ headquarters in Mexico City.

FuelFix