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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Gulf of Mexico Oil Accident Is Deadliest in 43 Years
 Andres R. Martinez & Patrick Harrington - Bloomberg
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| | A Mexican Army guard stands at a post near the Pemex, Petroleos Mexicanos, plant in Mexico City, on July 11, 2007. Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg News. |
The collision of a Petroleos Mexicanos oil rig and a floating platform during a storm this week was the deadliest offshore accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 43 years, with at least 18 workers killed and seven missing.
The death toll is the second worst in the Gulf, where Mexico produces most of its oil and the U.S. gets about 27 percent of its output. In 1964, an explosion on a C.P. Baker drilling barge killed 22, said Simon Marquis, a U.K.-based offshore rig researcher.
Petroleos Mexicanos, the government-owned oil monopoly known as Pemex, said yesterday that rescuers have retrieved 61 of the 86 employees from the site of the Oct. 23 accident about 47 miles (75 kilometers) from Ciudad del Carmen in Mexico's Campeche state. The impact on Pemex's production will be "relatively low," Energy Minister Georgina Kessel said today in Mexico City without providing details.
"It was a lamentable accident," said Kessel, who also serves as Pemex chairwoman. "We need to make sure that all of Petroleos Mexicanos platforms are operating under international safety levels."
The storm brought waves as high as 26 feet (8 meters) and wind gusts of 81 miles per hour. Three of the eight Mexican ports that were closed to commercial traffic in the Gulf have reopened as the storm passed, said Martin Munoz, a spokesman for Mexico's National Meteorological Service for the Merchant Marine.
Moment of Silence
Pemex Chief Executive Officer Jesus Reyes Heroles and members of the Senate Energy Committee stood for a minute of silence today before beginning a congressional hearing in Mexico City.
Four of the dead workers were employed by Pemex, seven for the platform owner Compania Perforadora La Central and five for two other contractors, Pemex said. Two of the dead have yet to be identified, the company said.
All the rescue boats have been found, the company said.
The Gulf of Mexico accounts for about 27 percent of U.S. oil production and 15 percent of natural-gas output, according to Energy Department figures. About 82 percent of Pemex's oil production comes from offshore reserves in the Gulf, company spokeswoman Martha Avelar said.
The impact of this week's accident on Mexico's total crude- oil production isn't "worrying," Kessel told reporters in Mexico City after participating in a chemicals industry conference.
To contact the reporters on this story: Andres R. Martinez in Chicago at amartinez28@bloomberg.net ; Joe Carroll in Chicago at jcarroll8@bloomberg.net. |
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