Fire Contained at Pemex’s Dos Bocas Refinery; Third Incident in a Month

Mexico’s state-owned company Pemex said it extinguished a fire late Thursday at the coking plant of its 340,000 b/d Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco, with no reported injuries and limited impact on operations. The incident marks the third accident in less than a month.

The blaze, reported earlier in the day, was brought under control late Thursday with more than 150 emergency response personnel deployed to contain the fire, which was confined to a coke storage area within the facility, Pemex said in a statement.

The company did not immediately disclose the cause of the fire or the extent of any damage, though it said a root cause analysis is underway.

Cooling and inspection work was ongoing late Thursday, while authorities secured the area, Pemex added.

“The fire is confined solely to a coke storage area and is under control,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said on social media, adding that navy and defense personnel supported efforts to extinguish the blaze.

Thursday’s incident marks the second fire at the refinery in less than a month, following a March 17 blaze linked to ignited oily wastewater that left five workers dead outside the facility’s perimeter. A week after, more than 549,000 liters of crude oil spilled from the refinery into nearby waters.

Dos Bocas, a flagship project of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has faced operational and safety challenges since its official opening in 2022, including recent spills and missed output targets. In February it operated at 60.4% of its capacity, according to Pemex records.

Reporting by José Luis Adriano, jadriano@opisnet.com; Editing by Karla Omaña, komana@opisnet.com and Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com