New fire strikes Pemex offshore oil unit

OREANDA-NEWS. February 10, 2016. Mexico's state-run Pemex said a fire is under control at an offshore unit in Campeche Bay.

It was not immediately clear if oil and natural gas production has been affected.

The ongoing fire at a compression unit in the Abkatun-A processing cluster took two lives and left seven others injured, Pemex said.

The firm said the platform has not been evacuated.

The same unit was the subject of a deadly blaze in April 2015 that led to a loss of 220,000 b/d of crude for five days and a 6.3pc decline in gas production. Another fire in August 2015 killed one and injured another, without impacting production.

The compression capacity on the platform is 570mn ft3/d (16mn m3/d), according to Pemex data.

One of the two workers who died in today's incident was a Pemex employee, the other a contractor from Cotemar, Pemex said.

In 2010-14, the Abkatun-A complex underwent nine safety audits, Pemex documents show.