Fire Blazes On Oil Platform In Gulf Of Mexico - 300 Evacuated

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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.

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It was not immediately clear how the fire had begun in the Gulf, which is home to Mexico’s biggest oil field.

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.