An investigation is under way into the cause of an early May fire at Hellenic Petroleum SA’s 148,000-b/d refinery in Aspropyrgos, Greece, that left several workers injured.
The fire broke out at 8:20 a.m. local time on May 8 in an unidentified unit and was extinguished by the refinery’s on-site firefighting team, Hellenic Petroleum said.
The incident, which occurred during scheduled maintenance on the unit, sent six workers to regional hospitals with mild to severe burns.
Panagiotis Lafazanis, Greece’s minister of reconstruction of production, environment, and energy, who visited the refinery to meet with Hellenic Petroleum officials on the day of the incident, has called for an immediate investigation into the cause of the fire, according to a ministry statement.
Details regarding the current status of operations at the refinery have not been disclosed.
The planned maintenance turnaround at the Aspropyrgos refinery was to include a series of upgrades designed to improve energy efficiency at the plant, as well as a splitter debottlenecking project to boost production of propylene, Hellenic Petroleum said in its annual report for 2014.
Hellenic Petroleum also plans to undertake a series of initiatives this year at its other two refineries in Greece as part of the company’s long-term DIAS refining excellence program, which aims to optimize and improve the operation, maintenance, and competitiveness of its three Greek processing centers.
At its 100,000-b/d Elefsina refinery, which together with the Aspropyrgos refinery comprises its South Refining Hub, Hellenic Petroleum said it expects to complete investments in 2015 for a project to recover hydrogen from the fuel gas stream of the refinery’s hydrocracker complex, as well as a project to connect the refinery with a natural gas grid as an alternative source for hydrogen production.
According to its latest annual report, during 2014, Hellenic Petroleum executed the following DIAS-related projects at its Greek refineries:
• Μaximizing the capacity of vacuum distillation, hydrocracking, and flexicoking units of the Elefsina refinery.
• Reducing use of fuel oil at the Elefsina refinery.
• Limiting steam losses at the 93,000-b/d Thessaloniki refinery.
• Installing a new high-efficiency boiler to replace older boilers at the Aspropyrgos refinery.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
