Three Fires At Pemex Facilities In One Day

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Feb 24, 2023, 8:30 AM CST

Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex saw three fires in one day at three separate facilities that it operates in Mexico and the United States.

Pemex reported on Thursday a fire at the storage facility Tuzandepetl in the state of Veracruz. The fire started in the drilling equipment for reasons that are yet unknown, the Mexican company said. Five workers are unaccounted for after the incident, while three others are being treated for their injuries in hospital, Pemex said, adding that the fire was extinguished.

Later on Thursday, the company said that there was a fire at the Minatitlán refinery in the same state, Veracruz. The fire was contained and later extinguished, but five workers were injured, Pemex said.

The third fire in one day at a Pemex facility occurred in the Pemex-run refinery in Deer Park, Texas. A fire incident was reported at one of the units of the Deer Park refinery on Thursday, according to a community alert quoted by Reuters. The fire incident was being handled within the refinery, and the alert was later updated to all-clear, according to Reuters. 

Pemex facilities have often suffered incidents in recent years. Last November, 19 people – including Pemex workers and civil protection personnel – were injured after a leaking pipeline exploded in Veracruz.

Two months prior to this incident, a gas pipeline run by Pemex exploded in the Mexican state of Tabasco in September, causing a fire and leading to the evacuation of all workers at the Paredón Hydrocarbon Separation Station.

In another major explosion involving Pemex's assets, a fire broke out at a Pemex oil platform in the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico in August 2021. The fire, which occurred during maintenance, killed five workers and injured another six. The outage as a result of the fire reduced Pemex's production by some 444,000 bpd.

The refinery hasn't stopped operations and there hasn't been damage to refinery equipment, according to the company. The cause of this fire is assumed to be the spilling of product on a hot surface, Pemex added.