PEMEX Pipeline Caused Gulf of Mexico Spill; Three Officials Dismissed

ByJessika Becerra

This article by Jessika Becerra originally appeared in the April 17, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) acknowledged that one of its pipelines was the cause of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and therefore removed three officials from their positions.

At a press conference, Víctor Rodríguez Padilla, CEO of PEMEX, explained that the spill, which appeared as a large slick on February 6, originated from a leak in a 36-inch pipeline in the platform area of ​​the petrochemical complex located in Abkatún.

The cause, he said, was failures in the protocols, so the Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment (ASEA) has filed a criminal complaint with the Attorney General’s Office against whoever is responsible for what happened last February.

At the press conference of the Interinstitutional Group, it was reported that a criminal complaint has already been filed with the Attorney General’s Office (FGR). Photo: Roberto García Ortiz

While the prosecutor’s office and the internal control body carry out the corresponding investigations, the deputy director of safety, health at work and environmental protection; the marine control coordinator and the head of spills and waste, whose names were withheld at the conference, are being removed from their positions within PEMEX.

However, according to information from PEMEX’s website, the first position was filled by Miguel Ángel Miranda Mendoza. The others could not be identified.

“The incident didn’t happen on a platform; it was on a pipeline, a 36-inch pipeline. That’s where the leak occurred. It’s located in an area of ​​platforms, specifically the Abkatún-Pol-Chuc field, which has three oil fields in three different zones,” Rodríguez stated at a press conference regarding the progress of the oil spill investigation.

“We are reviewing the situation because something went wrong in the information chain. If we had immediately realized the magnitude of the incident, we would have acted accordingly, but it was detected as a minor incident. That’s how it was declared, but something failed in the protocols, which is indeed our main task; we have been reviewing all of those protocols,” he said.

The Interinstitutional Group on the presence of hydrocarbons detected on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico reported at the conference that no mass death of any of the species on the coasts of that place has been observed due to the spill of February 6.

“The Gulf of Mexico is home to approximately 11,300 species of flora and fauna. We have attended to some organisms that have arrived, including 13 turtles contaminated with hydrocarbons, 12 of which were deceased. And I want to emphasize that we have not observed any mass die-offs of any of the species recorded for the Gulf of Mexico,” stated Marina Robles García, Undersecretary of Biodiversity and Environmental Restoration at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

He explained that nine protected natural areas were monitored and that of the 4,697 hectares of coral reviewed, most showed no traces of hydrocarbons.

Direct Support to Fishing Sector & Communities

At the event, Luz Elena González, Secretary of Energy, mentioned that direct attention has been maintained to the communities and the fishing sector and that through the Community and Environment Support Program, PEMEX will allocate 30 million pesos to support fishing cooperatives in Veracruz.

He noted that during the Easter holiday period, the state’s beaches remained in suitable condition for visitors, without significant impacts on tourist traffic, resulting in a hotel occupancy rate of nearly 80 percent.

For his part, Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles, Secretary of the Navy, stated that the beaches are in a continuous process of cleaning, with daily work that has allowed them to be kept in adequate condition.

“It is important to point out that the waste that is still being collected corresponds to remnants that arrive gradually, derived from the natural dynamics of the sea,” he said.

He stated that 48 beaches along the coast have been attended to and that as a result of the operational deployment on the Gulf of Mexico coast, 915 tons of waste composed of hydrocarbon mixed with sand, driftwood and sargassum have been collected to date.

Based on the analysis of the logs and the cross-referencing of information that revealed findings, the CEO of PEMEX filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office and the Anti-Corruption and Good Governance Secretariat.

Among the irregularities detected were a loss of mechanical integrity and the repair of an oil pipeline whose activities were not reported to the general director or the senior management of the state-owned company.

This hydrocarbon leak at PEMEX facilities had been systematically denied by operational areas, especially in March, when oil spills began arriving on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico.

There is a match between the location where the loss of integrity of the oil pipeline was detected and the site located by scientists as the origin of the oil trail observed in the satellite images.

Oily water recovered from the containment barriers, at least 350 cubic meters, was hidden.

There was a contradiction between a simple “tearing” and the large deployment of 11 ships in total that were used to contain, recover and disperse the hydrocarbons that escaped from the pipeline.

In addition to these irregularities, there was the decision not to cut off the flow completely to limit the duration and magnitude of the spill.

The main valve was shut off on February 14, eight days after the leak was detected.

Last March, Rocío Nahle, governor of Veracruz and Secretary of Energy in the previous six-year term, downplayed the magnitude of the environmental impact of the spill.

He also said it was caused by a private vessel, whose concession for exploration and exploitation was granted during the administration of PRI member Enrique Peña Nieto. Later, he backtracked on his statements.