Pemex blames weather and leaks for offshore fire
Petroleos Mexicanos said July 5 that a submarine fire near an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by a string of events during inclement weather, but stressed there were no spills.
The company, otherwise known as Pemex, said a submarine fire burned for about five hours off its Ku-C platform on July 2. An electrical storm with intense rain triggered an outage on a pneumatic pump at the same time that a leak was detected on a pipelines tied to the platform.
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Gas from the pipeline migrated from the seabed to the surface and a fire broke out as a result of the storm, the company said.
The fire was put out after five hours by closing a submarine valve and injecting nitrogen, a non-hydrocarbon inert gas, into the leaking pipeline.
“It should be noted that there was no oil spill and immediate actions to control the fire that occurred on the sea surface avoided environmental damage,” the company stressed.
Pemex added that it started a repair program to address the pumping issues and was examining the root cause of the leak.
The oil platform is situated off the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.