State oil company Pemex has reportedly repaired two pipeline leaks at its Dos Bocas maritime terminal, after allowing four days to pass before publicly acknowledging an oil spill had occurred.
Pemex officials on Wednesday finally confirmed media reports of the oil spill, explaining in a press release that crude had leaked from an underwater pipe linking one of its offshore platforms to Olmeca refinery in the port of Dos Bocas, located in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
Playas públicas de #Paraíso, #Tabasco, cerradas por contaminación con hidrocarburo y chapopote en casi 17 km de costa, afectando pescadores y prestadores de servicios.
Pescadores señalan posible derrame cerca de boyas petroleras en puerto Dos Bocas.
El reporte de… pic.twitter.com/sNd6zmVRMk
— Fuerza Informativa Azteca (@AztecaNoticias) May 5, 2025
Local residents and fishermen reported that the oil slick had caused extensive damage to aquatic fauna in the Gulf, as well as to mangroves in the municipality of Paraíso, Tabasco. Beaches in the area were blackened and La Jornada newspaper reported that several oyster farms were contaminated.
In a press statement, Pemex said the leak occurred on Saturday when pipes from its Akal-C platform failed. Mapping by the oil company confirmed that spillage had damaged a 7-kilometer stretch of coastline.
Later Wednesday, Pemex said the leaks had been repaired by installing two metal clamps. It was conducting tests to ensure the watertightness of the pipeline. The company said it expected to resume operations at Dos Bocas on Thursday
Pemex said it had already begun addressing the spill. “Pemex personnel and specialized equipment immediately carried out a clean-up,” the company said in a press release. The company also notified the Safety, Energy and Environment Agency (ASEA) as well as the Environment Ministry in order to initiate remedial actions as required by law.
The Tabasco Environment Ministry also filed a complaint with ASEA.
The company said that it was working with local communities to establish preventative measures and to facilitate the resumption of fishing and tourism activities. Residents of Playita El Mirador, a tourist reserve and beach just east of Dos Bocas, complained that they were forced to cancel services during the holiday weekend due to the oil slick.
This oil leak comes a little over a week after an incident temporarily halted operations at the Olmeca refinery, adjacent to the Dos Bocas terminal.
A temporary work outage occurred at the refinery, prompting President Claudia Sheinbaum to deny that sabotage was involved.
Sheinbaum dismissed reporters’ inquiries about the possibility of intentional damage to the refinery’s catalytic cracking unit that uses fluidized catalysts to crack heavy hydrocarbon molecules into gasoline molecules.
A few days later, Pemex blamed a satellite communication failure for the outage.
Operations resume at Olmeca refinery after error causes work outage
Pemex said that shutdown did not put staff, nearby communities, the refinery or the environment at risk.
The controversial Dos Bocas complex was begun in 2019 by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador with an estimated cost of US $8 billion. By August 2021, the government admitted construction was likely to cost US $20 billion and last month Pemex confirmed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that construction had cost nearly US $21 billion.
Although it nominally began operations in 2022, the Olmeca refinery remains in the start-up phase, testing and commissioning ahead of full commercial operation. It has yet to meet the production goals set by Sheinbaum’s predecessor, even as Sheinbaum said last month that it was processing 100,000 barrels per day.
Actually, the refinery, which claims a capacity to process 340,000 bpd, processed just 6,797 bpd in February after processing nothing in January due to elevated salt and water content in the crude oil supplied by Pemex.
With reports from La Jornada, Uno TV, Riviera Maya News and Bloomberg News
