At least two workers have died, while the fate of a third is still unknown after an explosion and fire broke out early Friday morning at an oil rig owned by the Mexican state-owned company Petróleos Mexicanos, PEMEX, in the southern end of the Gulf of Mexico, off the coasts of Campeche and Tabasco (southeast).

On Twitter, PEMEX said 328 people were working on the platform, adding that almost all of them were rushed off the platform. He spoke of 8 injured, 3 employees of himself and 5 others of a private company with which he co-operates the platform, in addition to the two dead.

Photos and videos uploaded to social media showed the huge rig and its pipelines engulfed in smoke as firefighting and navy vessels floated by to douse the fire by spraying liquid.

Pemech said production at the Cantarel field, which is among the most efficient in the world, had suffered a “significant” hit.

The fire broke out on the Nohots platform and spread to an adjacent one, always according to the company’s management.

“Our technicians are studying how to repair pipelines, connections and other parts to fully restore” the platform, he said.

Pemech CEO Octavio Romero said in a video uploaded to Twitter that “we will continue to search” for the missing worker, “that is the number one priority,” as well as “how we will restore activity in the area , because [η εξέδρα] Nochots is very important.”

Over the past decade, production at the Cantarel field has declined, but remains substantial, reaching 170,000 barrels per day, according to company data.

The majority of Mexico’s oil production comes from the development of fields in shallow waters in the Gulf of Cabece, but where Pemech has suffered several industrial accidents in recent years.

Also on February 24, more than ten oil workers suffered burns when two fires broke out in the state of Veracruz (southeast).

The infrastructure of the state-owned Mexican oil company is also often the target of theft.

In January 2019, 137 people died when an oil pipeline exploded and caught fire in Tlavelilpan, Hidalgo state (central). The authorities blamed the tragedy on citizens who had gone to steal fuel, as there was a leak in the pipeline.