Mexican Offshore Rig Accident Kills 2 Workers

Mexican oil company Pemex said an accident on Tuesday has left an offshore maintenance rig in the southern Bay of Campeche listing, killing two workers, but has not affected crude production.

 

Pemex said the Troll Solution rig, which was contracted to operate in Pemex's Abkatun-Pol-Chuc shallow water oil field, was positioning itself to carry out maintenance on wells linked to the Caan Alf platform.

 

It earlier reported that two workers had suffered minor injuries.

 

"The accident on the Troll Solution platform does not affect production because it is a mobile platform dedicated to well maintenance," Pemex said in a Tweet.

 

Photos circulated on social media showed dark streaks in the water stretching a few hundred meters (yards) from what appeared to be the platform, which was tilting steeply.

 

"We rule out any crude spill," a Pemex spokesman told Reuters. "It is likely the platform contained diesel ... That could have fallen into the water."

 

The Caan field where the accident occurred produced nearly 12,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude in March, according to Pemex data. That in turn is part of the Abkatun-Pol-Chuc area, which produced almost 309,000 bpd in March.

 

Pemex said the platform was continuing to lean into the sea, but another spokesman for the company added that the accident had not "compromised" any wells.

 

The incident was the second platform mishap in barely a month to hit the Mexican oil giant, which made a loss of more than $6 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

 

On April 1, at least four people died at a fire in a separate platform in the Abkatun Pol Chuc complex, which temporarily dented production in the area.

 

Around 70 percent of Pemex's crude oil output comes from the southern Gulf of Mexico.

 

Pemex said around 100 workers were evacuated.

 

(Reporting by Mexico Newsroom; Editing by Marguerita Choy, Bernard Orr)