Mexico Issues Hurricane Watch for Southern Gulf Coast

By Chris Dolmetsch

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Parts of Mexico's Gulf Coast may get as much as 15 centimeters (6 inches) of rain from Tropical Storm Marco, which formed today in the Bay of Campeche, home of the nation's largest oil field, U.S. hurricane forecasters said.

The Mexican government issued a hurricane watch along the country's Gulf Coast from Cabo Rojo south to Veracruz, meaning winds of at least 119 kilometers (74 miles) per hour are possible within 24 hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said in a statement.

The storm, packing maximum sustained winds of close to 100 kph, with higher gusts, was estimated to be about 130 kilometers east-northeast of Veracruz at 7 p.m. local time and moving west- northwest at about 11 kph, the center said. The storm is forecast to strengthen and may be near hurricane strength as it moves closer to the coast, the center said.

The Cantarell oil field, the largest in Mexico and the third-biggest in the world, is in the Bay of Campeche, located at the southernmost bend of the Gulf of Mexico.

None of the platforms run by state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos have been affected, said Javier Delgado Pena, a spokesman for Pemex, as the Mexico City-based oil producer is known. The three ports Pemex uses to export oil in the Gulf of Mexico were also open, he said in an interview.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net.