Pemex investigates offshore pipeline fire

Mexico's state-run Pemex is investigating the cause of a fire that broke out yesterday on a pipeline that carries hydrocarbons from an offshore production platform near Dos Bocas, Tabasco.

Pemex shut the offshore pipeline that connects the platform to a separation facility near the Dos Bocas port on Mexico's Gulf coast while it works to control a spill using oil containment barriers, it said today. The fire was extinguished and no workers or other installations were damaged.

The separation facility is near where the government is building its planned 340,000 b/d Dos Bocas refinery.

Infrastructure issues have bedeviled Pemex for decades as it has struggled with underinvestment at its facilities. It was set to miss its goal of producing 1.9mn b/d of crude by the end of 2020 by a wide margin, only producing 1.67mn b/d in November. But the company hit its stated production goal for natural gas of 3.56 Bcf/d, excluding nitrogen, by the end of the year.

By Carla Bass