A string of fires swept through two Texas City, Tex., petroleum processing complexes last week.
Three apparently related fires were reported within an hour Apr. 5 at an Amoco Oil Co. refinery, a Union Carbide Chemicals & Plastics Co. Inc. petrochemical plant, and an Enron Power Corp. cogeneration plant adjacent the Carbide plant. On Apr. 6, an isomerization unit at Amoco's refinery exploded and caught fire during start-up about 9:30 p.m.
The Apr. 5 fires started on a street separating Amoco from the Union Carbide and Enron facilities. Officials speculated an unidentified hydrocarbon was released during heavy rains and washed into ditches by rainwater runoff. The hydrocarbon apparently ignited, burning four motorists.
Wind blew flames into a pipeline compound, destroying two gas metering stations on pipelines supplying Union Carbide and Enron. The fire shut down both plants and damaged several process units at Union Carbide, including a 1.2 billion lb/year olefins plant.
By midweek, Union Carbide was in the process of restarting all damaged units except the olefins plant, and gas service had been restored to Enron's cogeneration plant.
Amoco's refinery was undamaged and operations uninterrupted by the Apr. 5 fire. But the accident at the 28,000 b/sd isomerization unit injured one man and halted operations. At presstime last week, the unit still was down, but Amoco officials expected no interruption of product deliveries.
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
