This Article is From Aug 09, 2014

One Dead in Mexico Oil Refinery Accident

Mexico: An oil worker was killed and 11 others were injured in a brief fire at a northern Mexico refinery on Friday, two weeks after another blaze in the same complex.

State-run energy company Pemex said on Twitter that the workers were doing maintenance work on a coker unit when the accident took place in Ciudad Madero, a city bordering the US state of Texas.

The firm said the unit, which is used to produce petroleum coke, was out of service and did not suffer material damage.

"I deeply regret the death of one of our workers in the accident at the Ciudad Madero refinery," Pemex chief executive Emilio Lozoya Austin wrote on Twitter.

A fire injured 23 workers at the same refinery in the state of Tamaulipas on July 24.

Mexico's Congress finalized a landmark energy reform on Wednesday aimed at modernizing Pemex's facilities and ending the company's 76-year-old monopoly on drilling by opening the sector to foreign investment.
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