More workers have died in Pemex than in any other company in the world, and the Mexican president must keep pumping the oil producer, no matter what.
Pemex services in Campeche Bay, opposite Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico.
Morales, a 62-year-old mechanical integrity engineer, had been feeling unhealthy for days, but when he nevertheless saw the doctor, he was told to return to his bunk; There were many other people in poor health besides him. He kept working. He had his food in a poorly ventilated dining room with up to a hundred other people. He shared 160 square feet of living area with 3 men as he tried to forget about his worsening dizziness, fever and headaches. When April 16 arrived, the sky buzzed with air ambulances evacuating patients from platforms and near Pemex flotal, a floating hotel that can only house 700 workers. “There were a lot of people inflamed,” Morales. Es says it was possible for doctors not to take other people off the platforms temporarily enough. “
Pemex reported the deaths of 314 Covid-19 employees and seven contracted employees, which is not only more than all other primary oil corporations in the global group, but is also the largest number of corporations in the world. On August 13, 36 of the 7,500 employees on the Pemex platform had died of Covid-19, that these staff were more than twice as likely as the rest of Pemex’s staff to die from the disease and 10 times more likely than average. Citizen. And while its policies and procedures are now stricter, Pemex still suffers from primary epidemics. In August, a huge floating Pemex garage and oil processing plant off the coast of Campeche state stopped operations for six days due to an outbreak.
And yet Pemex continues to pump, despite the collapse in oil costs in March and April, and defying a global trend in which the oil and fuel industry is expected to reduce exploration and production costs by $100 billion, according to Rystad Energy AS.
Pemex is a key source of profit for government and national pride, a drop in production can have political consequences for Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, who has placed Pemex at the center of his plans versus 3 decades of what he calls neoliberal economic policy and blames the favorable systems to the market of his predecessors , adding the 2014 reforms that ended Pemex’s monopoly and opened the electricity sector to foreign investment, weakening Pemex and, in the election campaign, destroying Mexico’s oil wealth. By assuming the presidency in December 2018, AMLO pledged to counteract the decline in Pemex production and make the country’s power self-sufficient.
On April 13, Pemex said it had implemented an emergency plan to combat Covid on marine platforms. Workers on those platforms say the company has been slow to disinfect paints and living spaces, reduce staff, evacuate in poor health paints and provide diagnostic tests for Covid Evacuations were slow as doctors had to ask their bosses for permission at Pemex-run hospitals and regional offices to send others home , leaving others with other contagious people to continue running close to others for days after reporting symptoms. Interviews with more than a dozen Pemex painters, as well as former painters, members of the family circle and a lawyer representing painters, suggest that situations have come forward in some places and in others they have not.
Like Mexico’s general population, Pemex’s workforce has the highest rates of others with diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, situations that make them more vulnerable to Covid’s afflictions. These other people are treated at one of Pemex’s 24 hospitals and clinics, serving a population of approximately 750,000 people eligible for Pemex’s fitness benefits, adding 126,274 employees, members of the family circle, and retirees. Like much of Mexico’s public health system, care in Pemex hospitals is patchy, with some services poorly equipped to cope with the large influx of patients inflamed by the virus.
Pemex general manager Octavio Romero Oropeza paid three times to workers who died on visits to oil fields and facilities, but said nothing publicly about the toll that distinguishes Pemex. He immediately reported the measures he had implemented to combat the virus and made no additional comments. Andrés Oliva, spokesman for the Mexican Petroleum Workers’ Union, which represents more than 75% of Pemex’s workers, said in response to questions sent by email that the remediation Strategies on Pemex platforms “had been followed in accordance with the rules of the General Health Council of Mexico. ” He stated that the union, known by its Spanish acronym STPRM, had asked Pemex to “comply with its collective working agreement and the standards established through the Ministry of Health and the General Health Council. “
At best, Pemex’s reaction to the virus has been uneven, on March 18 the corporation announced protection and remediation measures to the maximum of its ground facilities, adding refineries and petrochemical plants, workers were required to use antibacterial gel and mask and their temperature was reviewed daily; Social estating was imposed and offices and factories were remedied, but on platforms, where social estating is virtually impossible, Pemex did not disinfect very well or diminish the workforce until May, according to five employees of the Pemex platform. Also that month, the corporation began to meet immediate diagnostic tests to others to address the platforms, according to workers, however, those that leave the platforms and disperse in all regions of Mexico are not yet tested.
Oscar Ortiz, an herbal fuel analytical tester on the Abkaton-Delta platform, says that before boarding march 30, he filled out a symptom questionnaire and had his temperature checked. months, several outbreaks occurred on the platform and at least four other people died from the virus, Ortiz said. “The security measures were not implemented on time and were not the right ones,” he says. “It makes you feel helpless because those lives may have been saved. “
Eduardo Fernando Maron Castillo bought two seats to accommodate his great on the crowded STPRM bus that had been growling for 20 hours from his home in Tampico in Ciudad del Carmen. helicopters up to 65 miles to sea platforms in the Gulf.
As the coronavirus spread in April, Castillo began to think he would stay away from platforms, where he worked 14 consecutive days each month, and buses due to obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, but he, his wife and his teenage son. It depended on his salary as a maintenance mechanic, who paid about 315,000 pesos, or $14,420, a year.
Although Mexico announced its first instances of Covid-19 on February 28, Pemex has not yet tested staff for the virus before they boarded in April, according to staff from five different platforms. On April 30, when Castillo returned to the Balam-Alfa platform, Pemex reported the virus-related deaths of seven employees and a contractor.
The tight, interconnected spaces of a platform on the high seas offer the virus a potentially dangerous infection matrix such as a cruise ship or a crowded bar
The narrow, interconnected rooms on an offshore platform offer the virus a potentially dangerous infection matrix such as a cruise ship or a crowded bar. A Pemex platform usually houses between two hundred and three hundred employees and subcontractors who eat and sleep together on board. There is a hierarchy in living conditions: according to supervisors and coordinators sleep one or two according to the room, and engineers and technicians sleep in rooms of four. Staff at the lower point sleep six according to the room and use a non-unusual bathroom. the other people staying on the platform, the managers come to tour the various amenities on the water, just like the hired maintenance staff.
When Castillo boarded the Balam-Alfa platform in late April, he did not discover a systematic implementation of measures to the virus, explains his partner, Isabel Robledo Segura, who improvised his own preventive measures and proceeded to interact with groups that did not. Wear mask or disinfect regularly. After another long bus ride in mid-May, he made the decision to apply for a paid license under clause 43 of the STPRM union contract with Pemex.
The clause states that painters who cannot move on to paintings due to an herbal crisis or other excessive scenario will possibly receive a payment until they can return safely. As Covid’s instances multiplied, many Pemex painters began to apply in segment 43. Castillo had painted for Pemex for 23 years as a “temporary” painter, a painter who actually has a permanent position but does not have a long-term contract. He was told that he deserved to queu the painters fully and that he might have to take advantage of the vacation days. Segura said.
It is unknown when and where Castillo was exposed to the coronavirus, on May 25 he took another bus to Ciudad del Carmen to fill out the documents in the user that he mistakenly thought he needed, he was at his home in June when the symptoms began to enlarge. from Covid, at that time Pemex granted him a paid license. He died on June 27, aged 50. “Sometimes I break down, cry and cry,” Segura says, her voice melting into tears. “He told me he was scared. As of August 13, Rodolfo Lehmann Mendoza, deputy director of Pemex fitness services, said the company had granted a 43-term leave of absence to about 8,500 employees, or about 7% of the force. labor.
Sergio Castellanos, a 56-year-old Pemex platform engineer with maximum blood pressure, was on vacation in May when he asked for a brief extension to cover the end of his planned period on the Abkation-Alfa platform. after seeing that Pemex was not implementing sanitation or security protocols its stay on the platform in March and April, he said.
“For just a few days of paintings, why don’t you let me through and give me a chance to avoid getting infected?”Question. Managers “are in the office, and because they are a little more isolated, they don’t realize how bad it is on the walks. “His application was denied and he painted the remaining days of his designee on May 19 and 20. On May 21, he left the platform and returned home to Minatitlón, Veracruz, a few days later began to expand a sore throat, headaches, fatigue and loss of appetite. admitted to a hospital in Pemex. Su oxygen saturation point had fallen to 78% dangerously low. “My teeth were shaking so much that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” he said. He refused to be intubated by doctors because he believed he was going to die. Equipped with oxygen, he recovered and was released on June 12. On July 2, he returned to the platform.
Pemex is in a worse monetary position than almost any other oil company in the world, with a debt of $107 billion; struggled to cope with a heavy tax burden, an inflated workforce, strong pension obligations, and a refining company that wastes money (despite all the oil it pumps, Pemex imports 65% of the gas it sells). Over the decades, it has made no significant investments in the discovery of new oil fields to update the more mature depleted ones. After declining for 15 consecutive years, its Oil Production is part of its peak in 2004. Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings downgraded Pemex’s rating in April, pushing their bonds into junk territory.
For decades, Pemex has been consistent with the Mexican government like a cow of coins. Where its foreign peers continually invest currencies to locate more crude, Pemex takes much of its profits to the Treasury. Taxes, royalties and other oil revenues account for almost 10% of the federal budget AMLO’s desire to increase the company’s daily crude production to 2. 4 million barrels by the end of his term in 2024 may be simply ambitious, given that July production is 1. 6 million barrels consistent with the day, the lowest volume of crude pumped since October 1979. It is also unclear whether or when global demand will pick up.
“I felt like an abandoned puppy”
Oil rig staff are a must for AMLO’s hopes. On May 1, Pemex announced that it had evacuated some 3,100 employees on the high seas, halting the density of the platforms. The company insisted that everyone who produces oil would stay there. “It is worth noting that the withdrawal of personnel is aimed at non-essential purposes other than the operation of offshore oil services,” Pemex said in a statement. Retrieved 3 June on covid-19 outbreaks in services. and platforms in front of Campeche, AMLO said that “nothing has been late. “More recently, however, he said epidemics on platforms were beginning to occur. “We also had difficulties for Covid because we had patients on oil rigs, on ships,” he said at his daily morning press convention on September 7. We processed them and production stopped. “
As staff get sick, those who are healthy have even more pressure to keep pumping. “The platform’s activities can’t be stopped overnight because we have production commitments,” says Morales, the pol-A platform engineer. the staff tells us. And, of course, the president, the Department of Energy, needs production nationwide.
After Morales was evacuated from Pol-A in mid-April, doctors at a Pemex hospital in Ciudad del Carmen discharged him with a diagnosis of laryngitis and told him to isolate himself in a nearby hotel that he, not Pemex, would pay. , took the next bus to Paraso, where his family circle has a house. He waited at the crowded bus station for 3 hours, then drove another 3 hours to Paraso “glued” to the other passengers on a crowded bus, His wife, daughter, son and chihuahua mascot, Mollete Federico I, named after the main dish of Mexican breakfast, left Mexico City to meet him.
A week later, Morales’ headache, fever, loss of appetite and dizziness became so severe that his son took him to a hospital near Pemex, and when the hospital was unable to accommodate Covid’s patients, an ambulance moved him to some other Pemex facility. in Villahermosa. This hospital had enough drinking water only for doctors and nurses, not patients, and morales’ room bathroom had no soap or tissues. His circle of relatives had to buy him water and toiletries. As it worked, Morales was high because of a fever of 102 F in the tropical heat of southern Mexico. “I felt like an abandoned puppy, ” he said.
He first tested the virus on April 24, the day he was hospitalized, the result was positive again 3 days later, came out on May 1 and May 19 came back negative. five when he sent an email to Pemex’s human resources branch requesting exemption from Term 43 paintings, mentioning his age and maximum blood pressure. He never won an answer, he said.
Clause 43 has become a challenge for many Pemex staff members and for some to be a source of discontent with their union. Jaqueline Roxana Izaguirre Godinez, an employee of the Salina Cruz refinery in the state of Oaxaca, reports that the union “negotiates” with staff on Article 43 programs rather than arguing their instances with the company. It also states that the union provides safe preferential remedy staff with respect to segment 43 programmes.
Ernesto Cavazos Soto, a platform worker, filed a motion to combat what he sees as an injustice to the union and blames the union for not making sure Pemex helps keep vulnerable personnel out of docks and sanitary facilities. Ortiz and Izaguirre are members of the Soto movement, known as Fusion Active Partners of the Oil Community, or Fusion of members of the oil community.
Oliva, a spokesman for the STPRM, denied that the union deterred Pemex’s staff from seeking clause 43 or given preferential remedy to some trade unionists. “It would be absurd to oppose compliance with a clause that was negotiated in the collective agreement for all staff. ,” he wrote.
Some staff members who did not achieve the corporation’s Term 43 exemptions have requested injunctive relief in federal and state courts. They claim they are entitled to exemptions under the contract clause or a March 31 order from the Department of Health that Mexicans who are most threatened with severe headaches from Covid-19 in paintings deserve to stay in House. they. The ministry’s order expired at the end of July, making it more difficult for Pemex staff to download or retain the paid license. A collective of lawyers known as Justicia Covid, or Covid Justice, has provided loose legal facilities to more than a hundred vulnerable Pemex employees. Emmanuel Quiroz, a lawyer for the group, explains that some clients find it difficult to qualify as vulnerable because the company has not kept their medical records updated. “Pemex is obliged through its collective bargaining contract to provide medical examinations once a year, however, in some institutions the personnel have not been examined for years,” he said. When this is the case, it can be difficult to know if they have a situation that puts them in danger.
Morales hired his own lawyer and filed a court order after Pemex failed to comply with his segment 43 waiver statement. After completing his 14-day stay on the Pol-A platform in June, he received a court order allowing him to stay outdoors for a platform from June 26 to July 31.
As the pandemic rises and drops throughout Mexico and the world, it is a constant presence in Pemex, which infiltrated the company’s ground facilities and added a refinery in Cadereyta; at least 4 painters of Cadereyta died, adding two of the refinery’s processing units, one in sales and one nurse at pemex Regional Hospital, according to 3 Pemex painters at the refinery who called for anonymity Contagion began with maintenance paintings in a unit affecting some two hundred painters, an aggregate of Pemex painters and subcontractors who ran to Look at Maximum Without Masks , the 3 painters say. They also say the company gave outdoor contractors access to the facility without wearing down fitness checks.
In Salina Cruz, Mexico’s largest refinery, Izaguirre says Pemex did not impose social esture or mask supply on all staff in April and May. There’s no soap in the toilets or antibacterial gel, he said. “The company is obliged to supply us with the mandatory appliances and appliances to protect us,” she says. I bought my own mask, latex gloves and a disinfectant gel because I was afraid to inflame and infect my children. “
The jewel of AMLO’s crusade to rejuvenate Pemex is a new $8 billion refinery in tabasco state, where the president of Mexico was born, once the structure is complete, the refinery will have the capacity to process 340,000 consistent barrels a day, becoming the largest in AMLO says the refinery will be consistent with Mexico to prevent the loading of gasoline. Critics say the allocation diverts attention from major drilling activity and suggests that Pemex’s six existing plants are incompatible with a third of its capacity.
However, a video posted through Dutch company Van Oord, a subcontractor of the project, shows that corporations are constantly suffering throughout the refinery until THE 2023 AMLO deadline. Off-site, many local citizens crowd up without mask or social esttachment, hoping to land on one of 20,000 structure works promised through AMLO, according to Mexican news site Animal Polotico. AMLO Energy Minister Roco Nahle, who tweets photos and videos of the site, recently tested positive for Covid-19.
Approximately 48,000 Pemex painters paint from home. This summer, the company completed an order for house paintings until the end of the year while creating stricter consulting lines for painters hoping to qualify as “vulnerable” and eligible for a paid license. You will need to be 65 years of age or older to be considered the main threat due to your age: five years older than the minimum age established by the Mexican Ministry of Health. For others with diabetes or high blood pressure, in addition to the needs of the Ministry of Health, such as maximum blood pressure level 2, they must have gone through a primary medical emergency, such as a center attack or stroke. use the criteria as a consultant as a requirement.
On 1 August Morales returned to work, arrived at the port of Dos Bocas in Tabasco and joined 10 other men with orange monkeys waiting in a helipad under a clear sky, grimly joking about his imprisonment in prisons at sea, on death row. After undergoing immediate diagnostic tests for the coronavirus, they flew 120 kilometers to sea platforms. Morales said he didn’t feel the panic that took hold of him on his last platform vacation, but he was certain that at home, his wife, the youngsters and Mollete the Chihuahuas were doing it. “My wife thinks of the worst. But I’m optimistic,” he said. “We’re in God’s hands. ” – With Bryan Gruley Read More: The Hidden Element of Heroin is a chemical manufactured through American companies