The Gulf of Mexico looked like a Hollywood movie set on Friday following a pipeline rupture that caused a massive blaze in the body of water. The ocean was on fire because a gas leak in the west of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula occurred in an underwater pipeline.
This caused an eye of fire on top of the water. Crews rushed to extinguish the flames, and the situation is under control. However, the damage was done to the ecosystem that will be hard to fix.
Details of the Fire in the Gulf of Mexico
The gas began leaking from the pipeline just after 5:00 AM on Friday morning. Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, owns the pipeline in the Campeche Sound. Pemex is a state-owned petroleum company, and they knew trouble was brewing because of security alerts.
As soon as systems chimed, the company sent firefighting ships to handle the issue. However, nobody expected the flame to be as substantial as it was in the gulf. Pemex fixed the flame by 11:00 AM ET on Friday after they closed the valves that were leaking and extinguished the fire.
There were no injuries, but the ecosystem suffered damage in the water. Pemex will continue to investigate the situation to prevent it from occurring in the future. According to Angel Carrizales, the executive director of Mexico’s Security, Energy, and Environment Agency, the pipeline did not cause the spill.
Journalist Manuel Lopez San Martin was the first to tweet the video of the explosions. It was the definition of a viral video, and it garnered thousands of shares and retweets. People were in shock at the devastating scene in the Gulf of Mexico.
Issues with Pemex
Pemex will likely have more issues in the future because they have been expected for the company. The public conglomerate operates 81 drilling rigs, including 11 that are offshore.
In April, Pemex had a leak in Sota la Marina in Tamaulipas, Mexico. The company said it would handle the issue by building a dam to prevent the flow of water mixed with oil. Although, they claimed that the flow posed no risk. So this was not an urgent matter.
In January 2019, the biggest issue occurred for a Pemex pipeline in Hidalgo. In February, Pemex had a fire arise at the Tula-Salamanca pipeline in San Juan del Rio. They were able to extinguish the blaze quickly.
It exploded, and it killed dozens of people who were collecting fuel from an illegal pipe. This pipeline was consistently breached, and it occurred ten times in over three months. It was believed that 10,000 barrels of gasoline were circulating through the pipeline when it exploded.
The gas was going through the pipeline with 20 kilograms of pressure when it erupted. Pemex blamed the breaches for the explosion. Although, critics claimed that the line should have been more controlled by the company. Both sides were at fault for this problem.
Pemex should have kept the area more secured, but people should not have been stealing gas. The company’s history with pipeline issues has put them in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
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