Looks like Deepwater Horizon all over again. Mexico's state-controlled oil company Pemex reports that at least four are dead following an explosion and fire on an oil platform in the oil-rich Bay of Campeche, in the south of the Gulf of Mexico, early today.
Some 300 workers were evacuated, and as many as 45 workers were injured in the blaze, which broke out overnight on the Abkatun Permanente platform in the Bay of Campeche. The oil field beneath the platform produced approximately 12% of Mexico's oil in 2013.
Eight firefighting boats were combatting the blaze, and a contractor for Mexican oil services company Cotemar was among the dead, according to Pemex.
A survivor of the blaze on the Abkatun Permanente platform in the Campeche Sound told the New York Times that workers "jumped into the sea out of desperation and panic."
"There was nothing you could do but run," said Roger Arias Sanchez, an employee of Petroleos Mexicanos' contractor Cotemar who escaped the burning platform in an evacuation boat. He spoke in Ciudad del Carmen in Campeche state, where most of the injured and evacuated workers were taken.
2013.