Propane is a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula C3H8. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, but compressible to a transportable liquid. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is often a constituent of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is commonly used as a fuel in domestic and industrial applications and in low-emissions public transportation; other constituents of LPG may include propylene, butane, butylene, butadiene, and isobutylene. Discovered in 1857 by the French chemist Marcellin Berthelot, it became commercially available in the US by 1911. Propane has lower volumetric energy density than gasoline or coal, but has higher gravimetric energy density than them and burns more cleanly.
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha. Petrochemical feedstock like ethylene and propylene can also be produced directly by cracking crude oil without the need of using refined products of crude oil such as naphtha. The crude oil feedstock has typically been processed by an oil production plant. There is usually an oil depot at or near an oil refinery for the storage of incoming crude oil feedstock as well as bulk liquid products. In 2020, the total capacity of global refineries for crude oil was about 101.2 million barrels per day.
Hydrofluoric acid is a solution of hydrogen fluoride (HF) in water. Solutions of HF are colorless, acidic and highly corrosive. A common concentration is 49% (48-52%) but there are also stronger solutions and pure HF has a boiling point near room temperature. It is used to make most fluorine-containing compounds; examples include the commonly used pharmaceutical antidepressant medication fluoxetine (Prozac) and the material PTFE (Teflon). Elemental fluorine is produced from it. It is commonly used to etch glass and silicon wafers.
Liquefied petroleum gas, also referred to as liquid petroleum gas, is a fuel gas which contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, n-butane and isobutane. It can sometimes contain some propylene, butylene, and isobutene.
A boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion is an explosion caused by the rupture of a vessel containing a pressurized liquid that is or has reached a temperature sufficiently higher than its boiling point at atmospheric pressure. Because the boiling point of a liquid rises with pressure, the contents of the pressurized vessel can remain a liquid as long as the vessel is intact. If the vessel's integrity is compromised, the loss of pressure drops the boiling point, which can cause the liquid to convert to gas expanding rapidly. BLEVEs are manifestations of explosive boiling.
The Texas City refinery explosion occurred on March 23, 2005, when a flammable hydrocarbon vapor cloud ignited and violently exploded at the isomerization process unit of the BP oil refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers, injuring 180 others and severely damaging the refinery. All the fatalities were contractors working out of temporary buildings located close to the unit to support turnaround activities. Property loss was $200 million. When including settlements, costs of repairs, deferred production, and fines, the explosion is the world's costliest refinery accident.
Hydrogen fluoride (fluorane) is an inorganic compound with chemical formula HF. It is a very poisonous, colorless gas or liquid that dissolves in water to yield hydrofluoric acid. It is the principal industrial source of fluorine, often in the form of hydrofluoric acid, and is an important feedstock in the preparation of many important compounds including pharmaceuticals and polymers such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). HF is also widely used in the petrochemical industry as a component of superacids. Due to strong and extensive hydrogen bonding, it boils at near room temperature, which is much higher of a temperature than other hydrogen halides.
Sulfolane is an organosulfur compound, formally a cyclic sulfone, with the formula (CH2)4SO2. It is a colorless liquid commonly used in the chemical industry as a solvent for extractive distillation and chemical reactions. Sulfolane was originally developed by the Shell Oil Company in the 1960s as a solvent to purify butadiene. Sulfolane is a polar aprotic solvent, and it is miscible with water.
The Formosa Plastics propylene explosion was a propylene release and explosion that occurred on October 6, 2005, in the Olefins II Unit at the Formosa Plastics plant in Point Comfort, Texas, United States. The subsequent fire burned for five days.
The Los Alfaques disaster was caused by the explosion of a road tanker near a holiday campsite on 11 July 1978 in Alcanar, Spain. The exploding truck, which was carrying 23 tons of highly flammable liquefied propylene, killed 215 people and severely burned 200 more. Several individuals from the company that owned the vehicle were prosecuted for criminal negligence. The disaster resulted in new legislation in Spain, restricting the transit of vehicles carrying dangerous cargo through populated areas to night time only.
The San Juanico disaster involved a series of fires and explosions at a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm in the settlement of San Juan Ixhuatepec, a municipality of Tlalnepantla de Baz, State of Mexico, Mexico, on 19 November 1984. The facility and the settlement, part of Greater Mexico City, were devastated, with 500–600 victims killed, and 5000–7000 suffering severe burns. It is one of the deadliest industrial disasters in world history, and the deadliest industrial accident involving fires and/or explosions from hazardous materials in a process or storage plant since the Oppau explosion in 1921.
The Feyzin disaster occurred in a refinery near the town of Feyzin, 10 kilometres south of Lyon, France, on 4 January 1966. An LPG spill occurred when an operator was draining water from a 1,200m³ pressurised propane tank. The resultant cloud of propane vapour spread, until it was ignited by a car on an adjoining road. The pool of propane in the bund caused the storage tank to be engulfed in flames, which produced a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion (BLEVE) when the tank ruptured. This resulted in a fireball which killed and injured firemen and spectators. Flying missiles broke the legs of an adjacent sphere which later BLEVE'd. Three further spheres toppled due to the collapse of support legs which were not adequately fire protected. These vessels ruptured but did not explode. A number of petrol and crude oil tanks also caught fire. The conflagration took 48 hours to bring under control. This incident resulted in the deaths of 18 people, the injury of 81 and extensive damage to the site.
An alkylation unit (alky) is one of the conversion processes used in petroleum refineries. It is used to convert isobutane and low-molecular-weight alkenes (primarily a mixture of propene and butene) into alkylate, a high octane gasoline component. The process occurs in the presence of an acid such as sulfuric acid (H2SO4) or hydrofluoric acid (HF) as catalyst. Depending on the acid used, the unit is called a sulfuric acid alkylation unit (SAAU) or hydrofluoric acid alkylation unit (HFAU). In short, the alky produces a high-quality gasoline blending stock by combining two shorter hydrocarbon molecules into one longer chain gasoline-range molecule by mixing isobutane with a light olefin such as propylene or butylene from the refinery's fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) in the presence of an acid catalyst.
The Williams Olefins Plant explosion occurred on June 13, 2013 at a petrochemical plant located in Geismar, an unincorporated and largely industrial area 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Two workers were killed and 114 injured. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) launched investigations to determine how and why the heat exchanger failed. The Chemical Safety Board concluded that a standby heat exchanger had filled with hydrocarbon. This heat exchanger was isolated from its pressure relief; shortly after the heat exchanger was heated with hot water, the hydrocarbon flashed to vapor, ruptured the heat exchanger, and exploded.
The Dangote Refinery is an oil refinery owned by Dangote Group that was inaugurated on 22 May 2023 in Lekki, Nigeria. When fully operational, it is expected to have the capacity to process about 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day, making it the largest single-train refinery in the world. The investment is over US$19 billion.
The Gallup Refinery, also known as the Ciniza Refinery, was an American oil refinery. The facility is located in northwestern New Mexico along Interstate 40, approximately 20 miles east of the city center of Gallup and near the town of Jamestown, New Mexico. The facility occupies 880 acres in McKinley County and employed approximately 220 employees as of March 2019. The facility processed approximately 26,000 barrels of crude oil per day and produced gasoline, diesel, heavy fuel oil, and propane.
An explosion at the ARCO Chemical (ACC) Channelview, Texas petrochemical plant killed 17 people and injured five others on July 5, 1990. It was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in the history of the Greater Houston area.
On April 26, 2018, an explosion and subsequent fire occurred at the Husky Energy Oil Refinery in Superior, Wisconsin. An initial explosion was reported at 10:00 AM and was extinguished close to noon, however a piece of debris had hit a storage tank containing asphalt, which ignited after spilling across the refinery, sending a thick plume of black smoke into the air. Thirty-six people, including 11 refinery employees, were sent to local hospitals, but there were ultimately no fatalities. Residents 3 miles to the east and west of the refinery, 2 miles to the north, and 10 miles to the south were evacuated from their homes temporarily due to concerns of both the toxicity of the smoke affecting those who lived south of the refinery and concerns regarding the plant's hydrofluoric acid tank causing further damage.
