The Internet Is Losing It Over the 'Eye of Fire' Burning in Mexican Waters
Caused by an underwater gas pipeline leak.
Footage of a Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, gas leak has been trending on Twitter. What looks to be a scene straight out of a Hollywood film, is in fact, a large fire on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico due to a gas leak from an underwater pipeline.
Many were left in awe after seeing the ocean on fire with the internet calling it the Eye of Fire and the Gate to Hell. Resembling molten lava, the fire was traced back to a pipe that was connected to Pemex’s flagship Ku Maloob Zaap oil field. The Ku Maloob Zaap is made up of 82 drilling wells and 17 oil platforms and was, at one point, responsible for producing over 800,000 barrels of oil a day. With the decline in production, due to the lack of reinvestment in new extraction tech, the state-owned petroleum company has hit almost $114 billion USD in debt.
The fire was put out in roughly five hours with the help of the firm’s fireboats. While the leak did not produce any spill in the ocean, many are using this incident as a chance to voice out the detrimental impact that offshore drilling has on Mother Nature.
An underwater gas pipeline has caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico. It is connected to a platform operated by Mexican oil giant Pemex that was producing 726,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent at the moment of the incident. https://t.co/xLzQOkumWhpic.twitter.com/ieqCVhtD95
— Akshat Rathi (@AkshatRathi) July 2, 2021
Yes, the sea is on fire in the gulf of Mexico. This looks like a scene from a Constantine sequel pic.twitter.com/p3yw83pFau
— Atom Araullo (@atomaraullo) July 3, 2021
The company that set the Gulf of Mexico on fire has sucked the easiest-to-extract oil out of the seafloor, seen production fall off, and as a result, is failing financially with $114 billion in debt https://t.co/FHfu0xMTOj pic.twitter.com/HAkjGmH0d1
— Brian Kahn (@blkahn) July 2, 2021
In other news, Antarctica has just recorded its highest temperature ever.
