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Platform Fire Forces Pemex To Shut In 700,000 Barrels Of Oil

Fire on an offshore platform operated by Mexico's Pemex has led to the shut-in of 700,000 barrels of oil, Reuters has reported, citing the chief executive of the company, Octavio Romero.

The fire began on Friday at the Nohoch-A platform that is located in the Bay of Campeche. Six workers were injured, two of them fatally, and one is still missing, according to reports from Reuters and MarketWatch.

On Friday, CEO Octavio Romero reported that fireboats had come quickly and prevented the fire from spreading to other facilities in the area: Pemex operates five platforms in the Cantarell field.

At the time, Romero estimated potential losses at several thousand barrels of oil equivalent, per a release posted on the Pemex website.

This is not the first fire to break out on a Pemex platform. Two years ago, during maintenance season, the company had a fire erupt in an offshore gas-processing plant in the Bay of Campeche. The fire killed five and shut in some 400,000 barrels daily in production.

That was the second fire at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap complex in as many months. The first one was attributed to a gas leak, with chief executive Romero making a point of noting that neither of the fires was a result of insufficient investments.

"There is not a problem of lack of investment, there is not a problem of lack of resources," Romero told media after the second fire. "The oil industry is a risky industry. We have had accidents, which in numbers are less than in previous years."

In February this year, as many as three fires broke out in Pemex facilities in Mexico and the United States. One was at a storage facility in the state of Veracruz, another broke out at the Minatitlan refinery in the same state, and the third one broke out in a refinery Pemex operates in Texas.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Charles Kennedy

Charles is a writer for Oilprice.com More

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