Repairs following a Dec. 24 explosion and subsequent fire at Consumers’ Cooperative Refineries Ltd.’s (CCRL) 145,000-b/d refining complex in Regina, Sask., will take months, owner Federated Cooperatives Ltd. has confirmed (OGJ Online, Dec. 27, 2013).
The company will be cooperating with Regina Fire & Protective Services to determine a cause of the explosion, but an investigation could take weeks, with repairs slated to take several months, FCL said in a Dec. 27 release.
While FCL expected an exhaustive investigation to begin over the next couple of days, the company has determined that the explosion occurred in a unit used to manufacture gasoline from propane and butane, according to the release.
In an acknowledgment that a series of fire-related events at the refinery over the past 2 years “are concerning,” FCL also said it will evaluate whether a comprehensive Process Safety Management system scheduled for implementation in 2014 requires further changes once the cause of this latest incident has been established.
But impacts to the refinery’s current production capacity as a result of the Dec. 24 fire remained unavailable.
Earlier in the year, CCRL, a wholly owned subsidiary of FCL, confirmed it had completed a 3-year, $2.7 billion expansion at the Regina refinery (OGJ Online, June 5, 2008; Oct. 25, 2007), which lifted the plant’s crude processing capacity to 145,000 b/d, according to FCL’s 2012 annual report.
