INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS

The Tamaulipas Refinery is located in the City of Reynosa in Tamaulipas, Mexico and is owned by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the Mexican state-run petroleum company. It is located on the border of McAllen, Texas, USA and serves as a key entry point of natural gas to Mexico from the United States of America. Prior to the incident, Pemex suffered a series of smaller explosions and fires at several of its refineries and petrochemical plants. Four workers were injured in a fire at the Madero refinery in Tamaulipas earlier in the same month.

The Amuay Refinery forms part of the Paraguaná Refinery Complex located in the Paraguaná Peninsula, Venezuela. Operated by the state owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), it is the second largest refinery complex in the world, refining 955 thousand barrels per day and accounting for 71% of the refining capacity of Venezuela.

The Nuevo Teapa pipeline is a 30-inch pipeline owned by state company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) carrying oil from the port of Dos Bocas in Tabasco to the Tula refinery in Hidalgo. As for many other pipelines owned by Pemex across Mexico, the pipeline had been the recipient of several illegal taps by criminal gangs in order to siphon off the fuel. Over 100 such taps had been detected by Pemex in 2010 along the length of the pipeline and 60 of these were detected in the area in and around the Puebla state alone.

Deepwater Horizon was a fifth generation, dynamically-positioned semi-submersible drilling unit built in 2001. The unit employed an automated drilling system and a 15,000 psi-rated BOP system and had operated in water depths (WD) greater than 9,000 ft. The rig had drilled wells up to 35,055 ft in the nine years it had been owned and operated by Transocean under contract to BP in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.

During the evening shift of 29 Oct 2009, the Terminal was preparing to carry out a routine transfer of Motor Spirit (MS) to the neighbouring Terminal operated by Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). Four employees were supposed to be on the shift and the operating crew started to prepare the MS tank (tank 401-A) for pumping to BPCL terminal.

The Caribbean Petroleum Corporation (CPC) oil refinery is located near San Juan in Puerto Rico, and occupies a third of a square mile. It includes a tank farm comprising 30 operational aboveground storage tanks, and a refinery which was shutdown in 2000. Prior to the 23rd of October 2009, the tank farm stored gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and fuel oil.

FABIG classifies Buncefield as a landmark incident. It resulted in severe explosion damage at and in the vicinity of the site, widespread damage over a large area, a major accident inquiry followed, major research programmes were undertaken to provide knowledge key to the understanding of the accident, it changed the industry’s hazard and risk assessment approach and management of other storage depots which previously had not been considered to pose significant explosion risks.

The Mumbai High North complex consists of four bridge-linked platforms at approximately 100kms from the shore.

The incident occurred during the start-up of an isomerisation (ISOM) unit when a raffinate splitter tower was overfilled and over-heated. When liquid subsequently filled the overhead line, the relief valves opened. This caused excessive liquid and vapour to flow to blowdown drum and vent at top of the stack.

The explosion occurred in a downgraded ammonium nitrates store, which was authorised for 500 tons and contained approximately 400 tons of product on the day of the explosion. The chemical was stored flat and separated by partitions. It is not known what caused the explosion.

Failure of pipework led to a major gas release containing 90% ethane/propane/butane. About 20 to 30 seconds after release, the gas cloud ignited resulting in a massive explosion and fire.

Drainage operations caused two explosions in the starboard aft column of the P36 platform. The first explosion was caused by the rupture, due to excessive pressure, of the emergency drain storage tank in the column. The explosion resulted in damage to equipment, pipes and electrical/electronic installations. Emergency firefighting crew attended the affected area.

29th May 2000: All power was lost to 3 electrical substations that supply electrical power to the North Side of the Complex which contains the Oil Refinery, various chemical plants, utility plants and logistics facilities. Emergency shutdown of the Oil Refinery and the chemical plants on the North Side occurred and the utility plants were also affected due to a loss of power to the main cooling water pump systems. In addition because of the duration of the power failure, a controlled shutdown of some other facilities elsewhere on-site was also necessary because the supply of steam for the correct operation of the flare system could not be maintained. No injuries resulted.

A pump supplying heated lean oil to a heat exchanger stopped and was offline for several hours. There was no flow of warm lean oil though the heat exchanger causing the temperature to drop to a value which was estimated to be -480C and well below the normal operating temperature (approximately 1000C). The low temperature resulted in the formation of ice on the heat exchanger nozzle.

As a consequence of flammable hydrocarbon liquid being continuously pumped into a process vessel that, due to a valve malfunction, had its outlet closed, an explosion occurred. The flare system was not designed to cope with this excursion from normal operation resulting in a failure occurred in the outlet pipe.

Following the release of a gas mixture, a vapour cloud formed and moved quickly downwind where it found an ignition source and exploded. There were several subsequent massive explosions involving two isobutane storage tanks and the catastrophic failure of a polyethylene plant reactor.

FABIG classifies Piper Alpha as a landmark incident. It was the world’s worst offshore oil industry disaster. The loss of life was staggering; 165 men (out of 226) on board the platform and two men on board a rescue vessel died, and dozens were badly injured.

At 11.00 pm on 2nd December 1984, an operator at the plant noticed a small leak of highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and increasing pressure inside a storage tank. The vent-gas scrubber, a safety device designed to neutralize toxic discharge from the MIC system, had been turned off three weeks prior. Apparently a faulty valve had allowed one ton of water for cleaning internal pipes to mix with forty tons of MIC.

A 200mm pipe between a storage cylinder and sphere ruptured, releasing LPG. The release continued for some 5 to 10 minutes resulting in a large gas cloud which ignited, causing an explosion and many ground fires.

Rupture of the bursting disc on batch plant for the manufacture of 2,4,5-trichlorophenol (TCP) led to the release of highly toxic dioxin. Dioxin is not normally formed but the reactor got too hot resulting in a runaway reaction which caused a rise in pressure leading to the disc rupture.

The cyclohexane plant consisted of a train of six reactors in series. Prior to the explosion, on 27 March 1974, it was discovered that a vertical crack in reactor No.5 was leaking cyclohexane. The plant was subsequently shut down for an investigation which identified a serious problem with the reactor. The decision was taken to remove it and install a bypass assembly to connect reactors No.4 and No.6 so that the plant could continue production.