Pemex said no injuries were reported and added it would investigate the cause of the fire. Pemex said the fire was brought under control within five hours, at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap offshore oilfield. The company later clarified that nitrogen was being used to control the fire at its source. State-owned oil company Pemex added to confusion surrounding the video, which was filmed 150 metres from an oil drilling platform, by sending firefighting tugs that appeared to spray water on to the flames. “That’s not an excuse or reason to pollute, but presumably you know you’re going to have a loss of life from the bottom of the ocean floor.An underwater inferno caused by blazing gas from a burst pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico has created stunning images of what appears to be a fire in the ocean. Then again, the Gulf of Mexico is far from a pristine area: “It was near a pipeline,” says Reddy. While marine mammals, fish, and birds may have stayed away from the fire (which was visible from a distance), Reddy says it’s likely that plankton in the water would have been killed. That’s not to say that the fire won’t create some damage to marine life. “Luckily this was only five hours not 50 hours,” says Reddy, noting that the air quality could have otherwise affected the workers on the fireboats. very lucky to have people/technology nearby it was a damaged pipeline & not a well deep below the ocean. Like buying a house, it's all about location. #GulfOfMexicoFire unlikely hurt ocean life. very lucky to have people/technology nearby.” “Like buying a house, it’s all about location. Reddy may not have paid too much attention to the spill, but by Saturday, he realized that footage of the burning flames was causing plenty of anxiety in other circles. As he sifted through queries on his inbox on Saturday, he decided to tweet his take on the subject: “#GulfofMexicoFire unlikely to hurt ocean life,” he wrote. “That’s one of the reasons why that imagery is so strong, because it’s so clean.” Footage of an oil spill would have looked “dirtier,” he adds. “It’s reasonable for him to say that because the pipeline might only been carrying natural gas,” says Reddy, alluding to the fact that Pemex is recovering both oil and gas in the area. He says it’s likely that the ruptured pipeline simply leaked gas instead of oil. But Reddy, who took another look at the images of the fire after he read that tweet, says he’s inclined to take that report in good faith. Mexico’s Security, Energy and Environment Agency’s executive director Ángel Carrizales tweeted that the event did not create any spills, a claim that generated some skepticism around what caused the flames instead. There’s also the nature of the leak to consider. “There’s a whole infrastructure for getting people there, getting supplies there… they have a good lay of the land.” so there’s assets nearby to respond in a quick manner,” says Reddy. “This is an active area of the industry…. Reddy points to the fire’s origins by way of explanation: Pemex says its underwater pipeline-150 meters away from a platform at Ku-Maloob-Zaap, an offshore oil field just above the Gulf of Mexico’s southern rim-ruptured at 5:15am Mexico time. He glanced through the details, conducted a few quick calculations in his head (“the first thing you is whether it was from a pipeline or a well,” he says, because oil well problems are a lot harder to patch up), and decided that the long-term implications weren’t likely to be significant. Reddy, who spent the past few weeks studying the impact of a Sri Lankan cargo ship fire that sent tons of plastic into the ocean last month, initially paid little attention to news of Pemex’s ruptured pipeline. He thinks that nitrogen was used to to choke off any oxygen, but adds that it’s tough to know more without any further details from Pemex. “Nitrogen gas… would not allow any oxygen to be involved, so you couldn’t burn any natural gas,” explains Christopher Reddy, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and expert in oil spill science. While fireboats pumped water over the blazes, Reuters reported that Pemex also used nitrogen to extinguish the flames, with the fire put out by 10:30am on Friday, a little over five hours after the leak was reported (Pemex says nobody was hurt in the process.) The short answer is yes, but don’t smirk just yet. Una válvula de una línea submarina habría reventado y provocado el incendioĮsta fuera de control hace 8 horas /KceOTDU1kX □ Incendio registrado en aguas del Golfo de MéxicoĪ 400 metros de la plataforma Ku-Charly (dentro del Activo Integral de Producción Ku Maloob Zaap)
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