Major fire at Pemex’s Mexico refinery injures seven people

A major fire outbreak at the Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex)-operated refinery near the Gulf of Mexico in the state of Veracruz has reportedly injured seven people.

Citing Mexican media and authorities, Reuters reported that the blaze was brought under control at the state-run oil company’s Lázaro Cárdenas refinery in Minatitlán.

According to local media, the fire at the refinery started in the afternoon on 7 April and did not lead to serious injuries or death.

“There are no risks for the population,” Pemex was reported by the news agency as saying.

Mexico’s safety, energy and environment regulator ASEA executive director Angel Carrizales said on Twitter that the fire at the refinery started in a gasoline transfer pump.

Pemex completed a $3.62bn modernisation work in 2011 at Lazaro Cardenas refinery, which was built in 1906, to enable production of low-sulphur gasoline to meet global environmental standards.

The modernisation of the refinery involved the construction of 11 processing plants and associated facilities. This resulted in increased processing capacity from 160,000 barrels a day (bpd) of crude oil to 285,000bpd.

The refinery’s processing plants consist of a sulphur recovery plant, a hydrogen plant, a gas oil plant, a fluid catalytic cracker complex (42,000bpd), atmospheric and vacuum distilling plant (150,000bpd and 60,000bpd), a hydro-desulphurisation plant (37,000bpd), and amine regeneration.

In 2019, Pemex started the construction of the £6.5bn ($8bn) Dos Bocas refinery project in the Port of Dos Bocas, Tabasco.

Planned to be commissioned in 2022, the refinery is projected to have a processing capacity of 340,000bpd of heavy crude.