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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2007 
Storm Strands Mexico Oil Workers At Sea, Ports Shut
 Jason Lange - Reuters
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 |  | There is bad weather at the moment. We don't know how long it will last, it could be two days.
-Sergio Cantarell, port captain |  | |
Mexico City – A fierce storm stranded dozens of Mexican oil workers in rough waters Tuesday after they fled a drilling platform damaged by 25-foot waves.
Mexico closed its main oil exporting ports in the crude-rich Gulf of Mexico as a cold front hit the area, cutting off most of the country's vital crude shipments to the United States.
State oil monopoly Pemex said 81 workers jumped from one platform into life rafts after rough seas caused a gas and oil leak. About 75 of them had been located but could not be reached, and the others were lost.
One life raft was missing and some workers could have fallen into the sea as 80 mph winds lashed the platform, Pemex's chief executive Jesus Reyes Heroles said late Tuesday night.
He said he heard an unconfirmed report that two workers had died.
“We are still working to verify how many are in the (lost) life raft and to rescue those who were in the water. The weather has not helped,” Reyes Heroles told Mexican television.
He described the damaged platform, 20 miles from the port of Dos Bocas, as minor in terms of production but said mostly natural gas was still leaking from its well.
The government said most of Mexico's Gulf coast ports were closed, including the oil ports of Coatzacoalcos, Dos Bocas and Cayo Arcas.
Mexico is a top three supplier of crude oil to the United States, which takes around 80 percent of its southern neighbor's oil exports. Most of that is shipped from Gulf of Mexico ports.
Officials said ships stopped leaving the ports early Tuesday and could not say when conditions would improve.
“There is bad weather at the moment. We don't know how long it will last, it could be two days,” Sergio Cantarell, port captain in Ciudad del Carmen in Campeche state, told Reuters by telephone. “No ships are leaving. Everything is closed.”
Pemex, which has exported an average of 1.708 million barrels of oil per day so far this year, said it should be able to adjust its shipping schedule to minimize the impact of the port closures.
Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer
Mexico Reports Oil Spill From Damaged Platform in Gulf
Associated Press
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Mexico City – An oil drilling platform was damaged when it collided with a production platform in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday and an unspecified amount of oil leaked from the rig, Mexico's state-owned oil company said.
Pemex said 81 workers had evacuated the Usumacinta drilling platform in life rafts, and that company was making efforts to try to pick them up from the stormy waters of the Gulf.
The mishap was caused by a Gulf coast storm that has brought high winds, rain and cold weather to much of southern Mexico, the company said in a statement.
Pemex said the Usumacinta platform, owned by a subcontractor, struck a light production platform known as Kab 101, about 20 miles offshore from the port of Dos Bocas in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
Pemex said it had dispatched repair teams, but the oil leak continued through the afternoon. The company said it will send more repair teams as soon as weather permits.
“A leakage of gas and oil occurred” after waves as high as 25 feet and gusts of wind of as much as 80 mph caused part of the drilling rig to collide with the other platform, knocking out some controls on a valve, the company said.
The valves on the platform were closed after the accident but the leakage continued.
The drilling rig is |
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