Fire at Mexico Cantarell well under control-Pemex 01/23/00

MEXICO CITY, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Mexican oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) said on Sunday a fire at its Cantarell 69 well in the Gulf of Mexico was under control and did not represent any risk to the region's environment.

Pemex said the fire broke out at the well -- off Ciudad del Carmen in the southeastern state of Campeche -- on Saturday night during an operation to seal the production pipeline.

In a statement the company said 126 workers were evacuated from the platform immediately and that no one was hurt. ``The fire is already under control. We are evaluating the damage but there's no risk to the environment. We won't have any more information until Monday,'' an official told Reuters.

At the end of last year repairs on pipelines in the huge Cantarell offshore oilfield cut production by 16 percent from normal levels.

According to the most recent data at the end of June last year, production of natural gas in Cantarell reached 664 million cubic feet daily, compared with 435 million cubic feet at the end of 1996.

http://live.altavista.com/scripts/editorial.dll?eeid=1422070&eetype=article&render=y

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 31, 2000