Work overload causes accidents in Campeche oil facilities

Workers at Pemex’s onshore and offshore facilities face long working hours, shifts ranging between 12 and 24 hours.

One of the main causes of the accidents that have been registered in the facilities of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), both onshore and offshore, are the long working shifts of 12, 16, and even 24 hours that are charged to the specialists as a result of the freezing of positions.

“Just the National Union of Oil Workers and Professionals has 1,560 unfilled positions since 2019, many for safety, maintenance, and operations engineers”, said Silvia Ramos Luna, general secretary of the UNTyPP.

She recalled that the oil workers are going through very hard times after the unfortunate events that occurred last week with the fire that occurred a few days ago in the PM-119 drilling rig that was maintaining the Tuzandepetl-331 Cavity, in the municipality of Ixhuatlán del Sureste, Veracruz, which left four dead Pemex workers.

Ramos Luna, general secretary of the UNTyPP, points out that as oil workers they feel helpless, “we feel quite aggrieved because we believe that many of these accidents can be avoided, and with what is happening, we have to wait for the result of the Root Cause Analysis (RCA), since every time an accident occurs the first thing that is done is an analysis to avoid repetition”.

However, he emphasizes that many of these accidents could have been avoided if it were not for the policy with which the state-owned company is currently conducting itself, “the reality is that we continue with a policy of administering positions, of not allowing coverage and we as technicians continue with 1,560 unfilled positions for safety, maintenance and operation engineers”.

Ramos Luna pointed out that the lack of coverage, in terms of specialist technicians, causes fatigue, “we have engineers who have been working 12 hours a day for three of four years, since 2019, and others other are working 24-hour shifts; so, it is very complicated for an engineer to be fully alert 24 hours a day without any rest at all.

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