Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote that “the frightening footage of the Gulf of Mexico is showing the world that offshore drilling is dirty and dangerous." It was unclear how much environmental damage the gas leak and oceanic fireball had caused. Like a sight straight out of a fantasy film, the surreal image of a circular fire pit in the middle of endless blue waves evoked apocalyptic scenes reminiscent of Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings. local time and was completely extinguished by 10:30 a.m., according to Mexico's state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, also known as Pemex. On Friday, July 2, 2021, a fire raged on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico due to a gas leak from an underwater pipeline.
The company said it had brought the gas leak under control about five hours later.īut the accident gave rise to the strange sight of roiling balls of flame boiling up from below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The fire raged in the Ku Maloob Zaap oil field, located near the southern rim of the Gulf of Mexico, around 5:15 a.m. The leak near dawn Friday occurred about 150 yards (meters) from a drilling platform. Pemex, as the company is known, said nobody was injured in the incident in the offshore Ku-Maloob-Zaap field. Petroleos Mexicanos said it had dispatched fire control boats to pump more water over the flames. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States on the southwest and south by the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatan, and Quintana Roo and on the southeast by Cuba. MEXICO CITY - Mexico’s state-owned oil company said Friday it suffered a rupture in an undersea gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, sending flames boiling to the surface in the Gulf waters. The Gulf of Mexico (Spanish: Golfo de Mxico) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent.