Blast Rips Through Mexico Oil Refinery, Kills One
 Gabriela Lopez - Reuters
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September 08, 2010
Cadereyta, Mexico - An explosion ripped through a major Mexican refinery on Tuesday, killing one worker and pushing gasoline and diesel prices higher on worries state oil monopoly Pemex will have to import more fuel.
Pemex, the world's No. 7 crude producer and a large fuel importer, said a 32-year-old engineer was killed and two workers suffered serious burns on more than 75 percent of their bodies when a compressor failure at the Cadereyta refinery's gas oil hydrotreater triggered an explosion and a fire.
Another eight workers suffered lesser injuries and were being treated in a hospital.
The blast forced Pemex to shut the hydrotreater and the coker at Cadereyta, Mexico's most sophisticated refinery and its third largest, with a capacity of 275,000 barrels per day.
"We felt the windows shake. It was only a few seconds, but the whole building shook," said Jose Luis Garza, a government employee in Juarez, about 10 miles (15 km) from the refinery in northern Mexico.
Pemex did not say how long the two units, which support gasoline and diesel production, would be out of service, but in the meantime it said crude oil processing has been reduced by 15,000 bpd to 200,000 bpd.
The cause of the accident is under investigation.
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