Pemex reported the deaths of 314 COVID-19 workers and seven contractors; their platforms pose a threat to that of crowded cruise ships or bars.
Tomus Morales Vega shuddered and huddled with his colleagues in a narrow corridor in front of the doctor’s office, they knew they would wait a while, there was only one doctor at the Pol-A platform remedy center, one of nearly 240 in the Gulf of Mexico operating platforms and other structures through Petreles Mexicanos, or Pemex, Mexico’s state oil company. Outside, the wind whipped the platform and the waves broke on its reinforced metal legs.
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 15 square meters of living area with 3 men as he tried to forget about his worsening dizziness, fever and headache.
By the time a helicopter picked it up on April 16, the sky buzzed with air ambulances evacuating other people from the platforms and from a flotel near Pemex, a floating hotel with capacity for 700 workers. “There were many other people infected,” Morales says. ” Doctors couldn’t get other people off the platforms temporarily. “
Pemex reported the deaths of 314 COVID-19 workers and seven contractors; this is just more than all the other primary oil corporations in the combined world, and it is also the largest number of corporations in the world.
Ground Zero are the platforms: 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. most likely the average Mexican citizen.
And although its policies and procedures are now stricter, Pemex still suffers from primary epidemics. In August, a huge Pemex floating garage and oil processing plant off the coast of Campeche state halted 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 cut $100 billion ($137 billion) in exploration and production. according to consulting firm Rystad Energy.
Pemex is a key source of profit for the 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 in front of 3 decades of what he calls neoliberal economic policy.
Morales on Paseo de los Angeles Reforma in Mexico City after his recovery.
He blames the pro-market agendas of his predecessors, adding the 2014 reforms that ended Pemex’s monopoly and opened the electricity sector to foreign investment, weakening Pemex and, the election campaign, destroying Mexico’s oil wealth. 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-19 on offshore platforms. Workers on those rigs say the company has been slow to disinfect paint and living spaces, cut staff, evacuate in poor health paint, and supply COVID. 19 diagnostic tests before shipment.
Evacuations were slow because 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 who continued to run close to each other for days after reporting symptoms. A dozen Pemex employees, as well as former employees, members of the family circle and an attorney representing the employees, recommend that situations have come forward in some options and in others not.
Like Mexico’s general population, Pemex’s workforce has the highest rates of other people with diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, situations that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19 afflictions. Array 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 at Pemex hospitals is patchy, with some poorly equipped amenities to cope with the large influx of patients inflamed by the virus.
Pemex executive Chairman Octavio Romero Oropeza paid deceased workers three times in visits to oil fields and facilities, but said nothing publicly about the toll that distinguishes Pemex. had immediately reported on the measures it had implemented to combat the virus and had no additional comments.
Andrés Oliva, spokesman for the Mexican Petroleum Workers’ Union, which represents more than 75% of Pemex employees, said in response to questions emailed that remediation strategies on Pemex platforms “were followed in accordance with Mexico’s general health standards. “He indicated that the union, known by its Spanish acronym STPRM, had requested Pemex to “comply with its collective working agreement and the standards established through the Ministry of Health and the General Health Council”.
In the best of cases, Pemex’s reaction to the virus has been uneven, on March 18 the corporation announced protection and remediation measures at the maximum of its facilities on land, adding refineries and petrochemical plants, workers had to use antibacterial gel and mask and her temperature was checked daily; Social distancing has been implemented and offices and factories have been rehabilitated.
But on platforms, where social estating is virtually impossible, Pemex absolutely did not disinfect or decrease the number until May, according to five employees of the Pemex platform. Also that month, the company began conducting immediate diagnostic tests on others who addressed the platforms. according to the workers, however, those who 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. That’s the scope of Pemex’s security protocols, he said. months, there were a number of outbreaks 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. feel powerless because those lives may have been saved. “
Eduardo Fernando Marón Castillo bought two seats to accommodate his great on the crowded STPRM bus that took him snarling for 20 hours from his home in Tampico in Ciudad del Carmen. helicopters about a hundred kilometers from the Gulf platforms.
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. depended on his salary as a maintenance mechanic, who paid about 315,000 pesos, or $20,400 a year.
Although Mexico announced its first instances of COVID-19 on February 28, Pemex has not yet tested staff for the virus before addressing it in April, according to staff on five different platforms. On April 30, when Castillo returned to the Balam-Alfa platform, Pemex had reported deaths related to the seven-employee virus and a contractor.
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 accommodates two hundred or three hundred employees and subcontractors who eat and sleep in combination 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 common bathroom. the other people housed on the platform, the managers arrive by air 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 anti-virus measures, 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 to paintings due to an herbal crisis or other excessive scenario may receive a payment until they can return safely. As COVID-19 instances increased, many Pemex painters began to apply in segment 43. 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 use holidays, 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, to his home in June when he began to spread symptoms of COVID-19. At that time, Pemex granted him paid leave. He died on June 27, older than 50 years.
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as AMLO, has placed Pemex at the center of his economic policy.
“Sometimes I collapse, cry and cry,” says Segura, her voice dissofiing in tears. “He told me he was afraid. As of August 13, Rodolfo Lehmann Mendoza, Pemex’s deputy director of fitness services, said the corporate had granted a deadline of 43 leave about 8,500 employees, or about 7% of the workforce.
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 work, why don’t you let me pass and give me a chance to get infected?” Question. The managers “are in the office, and since they are a little more isolated, they don’t realize how bad it is on the platforms. “
His application was denied and he painted on 19 and 20 May, the remaining days of his designated paintings consistent with the period of the month. On May 21, he left the platform and returned home to Minatitlón, Veracruz. Within a few days it began to expand, sore throats, pains, headaches, fatigue and loss of appetite. On June 1, he entered a hospital in Pemex. Su the point of oxygen saturation had fallen to a dangerously low level of 78, consistent with a hundred.
“My teeth were shaking so much that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut,” he said. He refused to let the doctors intubate him because he thought he was going to die. With oxygen, he recovered and let go on June 12. On July 2nd, 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 ($146. 6 billion), and struggled to cope with a heavy tax burden, an inflated workforce, strong pension obligations, and a money-wasting refining company (despite all the oil it pumps , Pemex imports 65% of the gasoline it sells).
Over the decades, it has made no investments in the discovery of new oil fields to update depleted mature deposits. 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 April rating, pushing their bonds further into junk territory. S
For decades, Pemex has been consistent with the Mexican government as a coin cow. Where his foreign peers continually invest coins to locate more crude, Pemex brings much of his profits to the Treasury. Taxes, royalties and other oil revenues account for nearly 10% of the federal budget. AMLO’s desire to increase the company’s daily crude oil production to 2. 4 million barrels until the end of its 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 oil. pumped since October 1979. It is also unclear whether or when global demand will recover.
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 aims not obligatory purposes other than the operation of offshore oil facilities,” Pemex said in a statement.
Asked on June 3 about COVID-19 outbreaks at the facility and platforms in front of Campeche, AMLO said “nothing has been late”. More recently, however, he said epidemics on platforms were beginning to occur. “We also had difficulties because of 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 worse that his son took him to a hospital near Pemex, and because the hospital could not accommodate COVID-19 patients, an ambulance moved him to some other Pemex establishment 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. conditioning doesn’t work, so Morales was 38. 9 degrees in the tropical heat of southern Mexico. “I felt like an abandoned puppy, ” he said.
The first test of the virus was 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. He returned to paintings on the Pol-A platform in June. five when he sent an email to Pemex’s human resources branch requesting exemption from The Paintings of Term 43, mentioning his age and maximum blood pressure. He never won an answer, he said.
Section 43 has become a challenge for many Pemex employees and for some to be a source of discontent with their union. Workers fear being denied union benefits if they pass STPRM through a directly pleasing appearance for the company, says Oscar Ortiz, an employee of Jaqueline Roxana Izaguirre Godinez, an employee of the Salina Cruz refinery in the state of Oaxaca, reports that the union “negotiates” with staff about 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, made 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 off platforms and sanitary facilities. Izaguirre are members of the Soto movement, known as Fusion Active Partners of the Oil Community, or Fusion of members of the oil community.
Production by the state oil company has been at some of its lowest levels since the 1970s; the federal government relies on its income of 10 in line with the penny of its annual budget.
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 discharge the exemptions from the 43rd company term have sought injunctive action in federal and state courts, arguing that they are entitled to exemptions under the Department of Health’s March 31 contractual clause or order Mexicans who are most at risk of severe COVID -19 paint headaches remain at home. The ministry order expired at the end of July, making it difficult for Pemex staff to obtain or maintain a paid license.
A collective of lawyers known as COVID Justice, or COVID Justice, has provided loose legal information to more than one hundred vulnerable Pemex employees. Emmanuel Quiroz, the group’s lawyer, says some clients find it difficult to label themselves vulnerable because the company has not kept their medical records up to date. “Pemex is required through its collective bargaining contract to conduct medical examinations once a year, but in some institutions staff have not been examined for years,” he said. When this is the case, it can be difficult to know if they have any situation that puts them at risk.
There were a lot of other people inflamed. Doctors should not take other people off the platforms temporarily.
– Mechanical Engineer Tomus Morales Vega
Morales hired his own lawyer and applied for a court order after Pemex failed to comply with his 43rd segment 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 on the platform from June 26 to July 31.
As the pandemic rises and goes down in Mexico and the world, it is a constant presence in Pemex. He infiltrated the company’s facilities on the ground, adding a refinery in Cadereyta. At least four Cadereyta workers died, adding two of the refinery’s processing units, one in sales and one nurse at Pemex Regional Hospital, according to three Pemex workers at the refinery who requested anonymity.
The contagion began with maintenance paintings in a unit that worried about two hundred painters, an aggregate of Pemex painters and subcontractors who walk around look to look, many without masks, the 3 painters say. installation without wearing down the fitness controls.
In Salina Cruz, Mexico’s largest refinery, Izaguirre says Pemex did not impose social estating or mask supply on all staff in April and May. There’s no soap in the toilets or antibacterial gel, he said. mandatory appliances and appliances to protect us,” he 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 completed, the refinery will have the capacity to process 340,000 consistent barrels a day, making it the largest in AMLO says the refinery will be consistent with Mexico to avoid the burden of gasoline. Critics say the allocation diverts attention from the main drilling activity and suggests that Pemex’s six existing plants are incompatible with one-third of its capacity.
However, a video posted through Dutch company Van Oord, a subcontractor of the project, shows that corporations are constantly running to complete the refinery until AMLO’s 2023 deadline. One of 20,000 structure works promised through AMLO, according to mexican news site Animal Pol-tico. AMLO Energy Minister Roco Nahle, who tweets photos and videos of the site, recently tested positive for COVID-19.
Approximately 48,000 painters of Pemex house paintings. This summer, the company completed a house painting order until the end of the year, while creating stricter rules for painters who hoped to qualify as “vulnerable” and eligible for a paid leave. According to an internal Pemex document of July 27, painters will have to be 65 years or older to be considered as the main threat due to their age: five years more 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 higher level 2 blood pressure, they must have had a primary medical emergency, such as a center attack or stroke. The Pemex representative stated that doctors would compare each patient separately and use the criteria as a consultant as a requirement.
On August 1, Morales returned to work, arrived at the Dos Bocas port in Tabasco and joined 10 other men in orange overalls who waited on a helipad with clear skies and gloomily joked about his incarceration in prisons at sea, in the death row.
After undergoing immediate coronavirus diagnostic tests, they flew 120 kilometers to marine platforms. Morales said he did not feel the panic that gripped him on his last platform vacation, however, he was certain that at home, his wife, young people and Mollete the Chihuahua were worried about him. “My wife thinks of the worst. But I’m optimistic,” he said. “We are in God’s hands. “
Bloomberg Businessweek
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