KILLS 2, 1 MIA

Mexican Pemex estimates platform fire shut in 700,000 barrels of oil

Reuters | Posted: 6 hours ago | 

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican oil company Pemex estimates that a deadly fire on a major offshore platform off the southern edge of the Gulf of Mexico has led to the loss of 700,000 barrels of crude oil production so far, while one person remains missing, the CEO of the state company, Octavio Romero, said on Saturday.

The fire started early Friday on the Nohoch-A link platform of the company's Cantarell Field and later moved to a compression complex, killing two people. The fire has since been controlled, the company said.

"Today, 700,000 barrels of losses have been reflected (...) because we closed practically all the wells in the area," Romero said via the company's Twitter account.

As of Saturday afternoon, 600,000 barrels of production had resumed, the executive added.

The company said that searchers were still looking for the person who disappeared after the fire in Cantarell, an emblematic asset that produces some 170,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

Located in the Bay of Campeche, about 85 kilometers from Ciudad del Carmen, Cantarell is made up of a series of fields in the marine area, and was once one of the world's most productive.

Pemex has suffered a number of industrial accidents in this highly productive zone in recent years. Most of Mexico's crude production, approximately 1.6 million bpd, comes from the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

(Reporting by Marion Giraldo; Writing by Anna-Catherine Brigida; Editing by Kim Coghill)