Thirteen people died and an additional 13 are in critical condition after an explosion Wednesday at a petrochemical plant at an oil export terminal along Mexico’s Gulf Coast.
“We toured the affected area of the complex, unfortunately preliminarily located 13 people dead,” Mexican Civil Protection Coordinator Luis Felipe Puente said on Twitter Thursday.
Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, confirmed the death toll in its own post. The company said a fire began around 3 p.m. and was followed by a large explosion. A total of 136 people were injured in the blast and at least 88 people remain hospitalized, according to a statement from Pemex, as the crude producer is known. The company’s Chief Executive Officer Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya, who flew to the site in Coatzacoalcos Wednesday, said that rebuilding the plant may take a year.
The accident is the latest mishap for Pemex as the company struggles to tackle aging infrastructure, illegal fuel taps and mounting debt. In February, a fire killed a worker at the plant and last year, a blaze at a Gulf of Mexico platform left seven dead and caused about $780 million in losses.
Mexichem SAB, which operates a unit at the plant in a venture with Pemex, will conduct an investigation to determine the cause of the accident, according to a statement filed with the Mexican Stock Exchange Wednesday night. Mexichem fell 5.7 percent to 43.19 pesos at 1:25 p.m. in Mexico City, the most intraday since January.
The Mexichem unit produces around 1,000 tons a day of ethylene, according to Alik Garcia, equity analyst at Intercam Casa de Bolsa.
“It’s unlikely that Mexichem is going to reach output goals this year,” Garcia said in a phone interview from Mexico City. “The fall in shares today is justified and it is likely that we are going to continue to see pressure on the shares in the short term.”
Hundreds were evacuated and schools closed, Javier Duarte, governor of Veracruz state, said in an interview Wednesday with Grupo Formula. The blaze sent dark plumes of smoke into the sky, emitting a cloud of toxic chemicals. Pemex said the cloud has started to dissipate.
Gonzalez Anaya was in New York earlier this week where he and Finance Minister Luis Videgaray assured investors that Pemex is taking measures to overcome a liquidity crunch from low oil prices and declining production. The company is looking to cut 100 billion pesos ($5.77 billion) in spending this year to stem losses, which reached $32 billion last year.
Gonzalez Anaya said that he’s looking to sell a stake in his company’s refining facilities. Pemex is pushing to bring in foreign partners to help modernize plants and reverse a decline in oil production.
“We lose our shirts on refining,” he said in an interview Tuesday at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “They’re not great assets.”
