Pemex the Mexican state-run petroleum giant said on Wednesday it had evacuated around 300 workers after a fire broke out on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
Local emergency services have report that several have been injured.
It was not immediately clear how the fire had begun in the Gulf, which is home to Mexico’s biggest oil field.
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Update: A Spokesman for the oil giant said that at least four people have died and several have been injured in the blaze.
RT report: Pemex said on Twitter that the fire on the Abkatun Permanente platform in the oil-rich Campeche Bay broke out overnight and eight firefighting boats were tackling the blaze.
Authorities have registered at least 45 people injured so far, a spokesman for emergency services in Ciudad del Carmen said, according to Reuters. No fatalities have been reported.
In recent years Pemex – Latin America’s second largest company – has suffered a number of accidents. At least 37 people were killed by a blast at the company’s Mexico City headquarters in 2013.
Another fire in a Pemex natural gas facility in September 2012 claimed 26 lives.
The incident comes nearly five years after the devastating 2010 BP incident in the Gulf of Mexico – the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.
Niamh Harris
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