Deadly Fire on Pemex Oil Platform to Cost up to $780m

Losses associated with a deadly explosion on an offshore oil platform owned by Mexican state-run company Pemex will total as much as $780 million, a source close to the discussions said on Tuesday.

 

The fire that engulfed the Abkatun A-Permanente platform on the southern rim of the Gulf of Mexico earlier this month killed four workers and provoked the evacuation of over 300 others as ships sought to douse the flames.

 

Pemex has informed its insurers that losses from the accident will likely total between $670 million and $780 million, the source said.

 

London-based trade publication Insurance Insider first published the range of losses, noting that the total insured value of the Abkatun Pol Chuc complex, of which the Abkatun A-Permanente platform is a part, reaches $1.3 billion.

 

At the upper end of the range, the losses would amount to 60 percent of the value of the complex.

 

The Abkatun Pol Chuc complex includes six platforms and is located in the oil-rich Bay of Campeche.

 

Pemex said a week after the explosion that it still expected to meet its regional output forecast of 646,000 barrels per day for the area where the explosion took place.

 

The damaged Abkatun A-Permanente platform separates crude oil and gas from various wells to process around 40,000 bpd.

 

The Abkatun Pol Chuc complex produces around 300,000 bpd of Pemex's total output of about 2.3 million bpd.