MOSCOW (MRC) -- An intense blaze at Mexican national oil company Pemex's largest refinery was quickly put out, reported Reuters with reference to a company official, but it remained unclear what sparked the fire.
Local and social media had published images of bright orange flames burning near the facility's distillation towers from early on Saturday.
The Pemex official, who requested anonymity in line with the company's communications policy, told Reuters the early Saturday morning blaze was extinguished in just 15 minutes.
"It didn't stop operations and nobody was injured," the official said, but did not provide further information on what caused the fire.
The Salina Cruz refinery, on the coast of southern Oaxaca state, can process up to 330,000 barrels of crude oil per day and is a key Pemex trading and logistical hub along Mexico's Pacific coast.
As MRC wrote before, a major fire broke out at an oil refinery run by Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) in the eastern city of Minatitlan in the southern state of Veracruz earlier this year. The blaze started at this refinery, one of six operated by Pemex, which has a capacity of up to 285,000 barrels per day, on Wednesday afternoon, 7 April, 2021.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
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