Pemex Restores Oil Output Suspended Due to Platform Fire

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said on Monday that its has resumed 421,000 barrels per day in oil production and brought back online 125 wells following a deadly fire at an offshore platform on Aug. 22.

The accident in the southern Gulf of Mexico at the offshore platform that is part of Pemex's most productive oil field Ku-Maloob-Zaap, knocked out about 25% of Mexico's total production.

Five workers were killed and six injured in the fire, which broke out as crews were performing maintenance on the platform, and a search for missing workers continues, Pemex Chief Executive Octavio Romero saod.

The heavily indebted Pemex has long had a checkered record on security, and dozens of people have been killed in major accidents in the past. Still, the platform fire was one of the worst Pemex has suffered under the current government.

"There is not a problem of lack of investment, there is not a problem of lack of resources," Romero said. "The oil industry is a risky industry. We have had accidents, which in numbers are less than in previous years."

Four of those killed were from a contracting firm, Mexican oil services company Cotemar, and one from Pemex, Romero said.

Pemex has said two people at the site are still missing. They are from another contracting firm, earlier named as Bufete de Monitoreo de Condiciones e Integridad.

A fire at another Pemex platform in the Bay of Campeche caused by an underwater gas pipeline leak in July was dubbed an "eye of fire" on social media due to the blaze's circular shape. It took more than five hours to extinguish.

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