14 DAY TRIAL // This Wednesday, early in the morning, an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico caught fire seemingly out of the blue. The flames have since been extinguished, and although badly damaged, the oil platform is still standing.
According to Mexican state-owned petroleum company Pemex, owner of the oil platform, 4 people were killed and 16 were injured when the rig was engulfed in flames. A total of 302 workers had to be evacuated.
It is understood that, of the people injured in the incident, 2 are in critical condition. They were rushed to the nearest hospital immediately after they were rescued from the Abkatun Permanente platform.
Medical experts are doing their best to save their life, but at least for now, it is unclear whether or not they will manage to pull through, Mexican petroleum company Pemex informs in its latest updates.
At the time it burst into flames, the company's Abkatun Permanente oil platform was located in the waters just off the coast of Mexico's states of Campeche and Tabasco.
The platform is still standing, there is no evidence of an oil spill
It took several hours and as many as 8 firefighting boats to put out the flames eating away at Pemex's rig. The somewhat good news is that, at least for now, the platform has not collapsed.
Besides, the Mexican state-owned petroleum company insists that there is no evidence that the fire caused an oil spill. Well, some oil worked its way into the water, but it was more of a runoff than a spill.
Pemex explains that the reason the fire did not translate into an oil spill was that, just minutes after workers sounded the alarm, pipelines leading to and from the platform were disconnected.
Since the oil rig was involved not in oil production, but in processing this fossil fuel, the Mexican company does not expect that the incident will interfere with its usual working agenda all that much.
As mentioned, it remains unclear how and why the oil rig caught fire. Pemex says that an investigation into this unfortunate incident is ongoing and that more information should soon become available.
