MOSCOW (MRC) -- A burst of flame at the Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) refinery in Ciudad Madero has killed three workers and injured several more, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to the state-owned oil company's report on its official Twitter account.
The company initially said that one worker was killed and 11 injured. On Sunday, Pemex said the death toll had risen to three, and eight workers remained in the hospital with injuries.
The fire occurred at one of the refinery’s coking plants which wasn’t operating at the time of the accident because of maintenance, according to Pemex. There was no damage to the refinery, which is located in the northern Tamaulipas state, according to Pemex.
At least four accidents have occurred at the Ciudad Madero refinery this year, including a fire at a storage tank on July 22 that injured nine Pemex workers. The Ciudad Madero refinery, the smallest of Pemex’s six national refineries, processed 129,763 bpd last year, below the daily production capacity of 190,000 bbl.
Mexico’s Senate approved additional legislation to a law passed last year to open the national energy industry to private investment for the first time since 1938.
The private investment that will be generated by the new law, estimated by Grupo Financiero Banorte to reach USD50 billion by 2020, will be used to improve aging infrastructure and reduce refining inefficiencies, according to Pemex CEO Emilio Lozoya.
We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, in February 2013, the blast that tore through the headquarters of Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos killed 37 people.
Later last year, in early October 2013, Pemex also said one person was killed while five others suffered injuries after an explosion rocked its crude oil refinery in the state of Hidalgo. The incident took place at the Miguel Hidalgo refinery which is situated in the town of Tula.
Pemex, Mexican Petroleum, is a Mexican state-owned petroleum company. Pemex has a total asset worth of USD415.75 billion, and is the world's second largest non-publicly listed company by total market value, and Latin America's second largest enterprise by annual revenue as of 2009. Company produces such polymers, as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS).
MRC