Fire on Pemex oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Eduardo Murillo/AFP/Getty Images
All 31 crew members were evacuated and there were no reported casualties, according to the company
Reuters
Last modified on Sunday, 25 September 2016
A fire broke out on an oil tanker of Mexican state oil company Pemex in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, forcing all the crew to be evacuated in the latest accident to plague the struggling firm.
The blaze on the tanker Burgos occurred off the coast of Boca del Rio in Veracruz state and all the crew were safe, Pemex said in a tweet. Mexico’s Navy said there were 31 crew members and that all had returned to port.
Images tweeted by Pemex showed the vessel giving off plumes of smoke as another boat hosed the tanker.
Early on Saturday evening, Pemex said firefighting teams were still working to put out the blaze.
The tanker was carrying 80,000 barrels of diesel and 70,000 barrels of gasoline, Mexico’s communications and transport ministry said.
The fire follows a series of other mishaps at Pemex, which is coping with major losses, increased competition at home, sharp budget cuts and lower revenue due to the oil price rout.
In April, more than 30 people died and dozens were injured in an explosion at a petrochemical plant in southeast Veracruz state, a joint venture between Pemex and another firm.
In 2013, at least 37 people were killed by a blast at Pemex’s Mexico City headquarters, and 26 people died in a fire at a Pemex natural gas facility in northern Mexico in 2012.
A 2015 fire at a Pemex platform in the Bay of Campeche affected oil output and cost the company up to $780 million.
Marine Traffic, a website that tracks vessel movements, showed the 11-year-old tanker en route to the port of Veracruz from Coatzacoalcos in the southern part of the state.
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A Mexican oil tanker went up in flames on Saturday — and it's still not clear why
Christopher Woody
An fire aboard one of Mexican state oil company Pemex's oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday forced the crew to evacuate, in what is the latest accident to plague the struggling state-run firm.
The blaze, reportedly caused by an explosion, took place about 8 miles off the coast of Boca del Rio in southeastern Veracruz state on the tanker Burgos.
The 31 people aboard were able to make it off the ship and get back to shore safely and without injury, Pemex said in a statement, adding that there was no risk to the local population.
The cause of the fire remains unknown.
Images tweeted by Pemex showed the vessel giving off plumes of smoke as another boat hosed the tanker. The ship was carrying about 168,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel fuel, well below its capacity of 270,000 barrels
According to Mexican news site Sin Embargo, the load was made up of 80,000 barrels of diesel fuel, 71,000 barrels of unleaded gasoline, and 16,000 barrels of desulfurized gasoline.
Other Mexican navy ships moved into the area to put barriers in place in case of a leak from the tanker, Sin Embargo reported. Four tugboats from Veracruz's port authority also arrived on the scene to with special foams to use to fight the fire.
The fire started just before noon, according to Pemex, and while there were no initial reports of spills from the tanker, a local official said in an interview on Saturday evening that some of the fuel shipment had spilled from the tanker but didn't pose a risk to the environment.
"No other risk [to the environment] exists; the fuel is spilling in the sea and doesn't contaminate because they are light fuels," Juan Ignacio Fernández Carvajal, director of the Veracruz Port Authority, said in an interview with Xeu Noticias. "It's not crude, it's not going to the bottom of the sea, it stays on the surface ..."
"The fire hasn't been controlled, we are working to control it," Fernández Carvajal said, admitting that the ship could still sink; "but [that] is what we're trying to avoid; we are attacking this risk," he added.
The Burgos was one of the oldest ships in Pemex's fleet and one of 17 tanker-type vessels the state oil company uses to transport fuel in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific.
The fire follows a series of other mishaps at Pemex, which is coping with major losses, increased competition at home, sharp budget cuts, and lower revenue due to the oil-price rout, according to Reuters.
On land, the state oil company has had to deal with rampant oil theft from pipelines throughout the country by both criminal groups and regular people.
While no deaths have been reported, Pemex has experienced fatal incidents in the recent past, Reuters noted.
In April, more than 30 people died and dozens were injured in an explosion at a petrochemical plant in southeast Veracruz state, a joint venture between Pemex and another firm.
In 2013, at least 37 people were killed by a blast at Pemex's Mexico City headquarters, and 26 people died in a fire at a Pemex natural-gas facility in northern Mexico in 2012.
A 2015 fire at a Pemex platform in the Bay of Campeche affected oil output and cost the company up to $780 million.
(Reporting for Reuters by Natalie Schachar and Noe Torres; Editing by Dave Graham and Matthew Lewis)