A federal investigation found that the PEMEX refinery in Deer Park failed to follow its own safety procedures in October 2024 when two contract workers died from hydrogen sulfide poisoning while performing maintenance on the facility’s equipment.
The final U.S. Chemical Safety Board report, released Monday, issued recommendations to the Houston-area refinery and to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in order to avoid similar tragedies in the future.
Investigators found that PEMEX Deer Park did not “establish an adequate method” to identify which pieces of equipment had been shut down for maintenance, and that the facility used an overly broad work permitting process that did not clearly evaluate or control hazards, among other problems…