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. [1]
The Point Comfort facility is the largest Formosa Plastics plant in the United States. Opened in 1983, it covers 1,800 acres (7.3 km²) and employs 330 full-time employees and 3,500 contract workers, 2,500 of which are costruction, and 1,000 are residential workers. [2] Among the employees are 120 personnel making up the plant's Emergency Response Team (ERT) whose members are trained in hazardous material emergencies and fire fighting. There are 20 operating units on the plant producing a variety of petroleum and plastic products. [3]
The Olefins II Unit uses furnaces to convert naphtha or natural gas into a hydrocarbon mixture containing methane, ethane, ethylene, propylene, and propane. Distillation columns separate the hydrocarbon mix. Some of the gases (such as propylene) are liquified and sent to storage while others are used to fuel the furnaces or are returned to the feedstock. The Unit is protected from overpressure by pressure relief valves which send gases into a flare system where the excess gases are burned at a distance from the Unit. However, on October 6, 2005, such valves were manually operated and could not be reached by workers in time to prevent the explosions.
 |
The explosions began shortly after 3 p.m. on October 6, 2005. The resulting fires reached reported heights of up to 800 ft (240 m) in the air and were visible from nearby towns. The fires burned for nearly a week.
On October 6, 2005, around 3:05 p.m., a trailer being pulled by a forklift caught on a valve in the propylene piping system near the Olefins II Unit, pulling the valve and part of the piping loose, leaving a 1.9 inch (3.5 cm) hole. Pressurized liquid propylene poured out of the opening, partially vaporizing, leaving a pool of liquid propylene and creating a flammable vapor cloud. The forklift driver and other nearby contractors saw the cloud and immediately evacuated the area.
A plant operator heard the escaping propylene and the expanding vapor cloud. He notified the plant's control room of the problem. The control room operators saw the leak on a closed circuit television and began to shut down the plant. However, valves that would have prevented further release of chemicals had to be shut off manually. Operators in the vicinity of the leak attempted to reach manual shutoff valves but were driven back by the vapor cloud. As a result, the explosions continued and the fires grew. Fire monitors were then turned on.
Two minutes after the valve was opened, the vapor cloud ignited knocking down several operators who were exiting the unit, severely burning two. The explosion led control room operators to declare a site-wide evacuation order. Shortly thereafter, the control operators began to smell propylene and also evacuated the control center. Yards away from the spreading fire was an area of the plant where flammable chemicals were stored in mass quantities. As the fire continued to spread, workers and contactors were confronted with the very real possibility that the storage tanks would ignite if the fire reached them. Experts estimate that had such an ignition occurred, the entirety of Point Comfort would have been incinerated. Some experts estimate such an ignition would cause even more expansive damage.
Reportedly, hundreds of plant workers and contractors ran toward the gates to evacuate. Many workers who evacuated to gate 6 were met with disappointment when they found the gate to be locked and no one present to unlock it. As a result, many workers jumped the fence in an attempt to flee from the continuing explosions.
The explosion had ignited the propylene pool under the leak and the flames spread up the side of a structure containing several vessels, heat exchangers and pressure relief valves.
The local authorities immediately attempted to issue a shelter in place order to the surrounding community with the exception of Point Comfort Elementary School. However, due to an error in programing, an "all clear" alarm was erroneously sounded. The students and teachers were evacuated to Port Lavaca, about five miles (8 km) away. State Highway 35 was shut down as it runs adjacent to the plant. The shelter order was rescinded at 9 p.m. the next day.
The emergency response team assumed command of the incident and began attacking the fire. At the time of the explosion, two of the off-duty ERT crews were on site for training so a total of 90 members of the ERT were available to respond.
At about 3:35, the side of the structure collapsed causing the emergency vent lines to be crimped. The crimped lines, softened by the heat of the flames, ruptured and burst into flames.
The emergency response team isolated as many fuel sources as possible and allowed smaller fires to burn off the uncontained hydrocarbons. It took five days for all of the fires to be extinguished.
The accident injured an unknown number of workers, four with severe burns requiring hospitalization. Many others were treated for exhaustion, pulmonary problems, and debilitating physical injuries. As yet, the effect on the residents of Calhoun County from the chemicals released by Formosa in the month following the explosions is widely unknown. Over a thousand members of the County have filed complaints against Formosa and others because of the explosions and subsequent release of chemicals.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found that while Formosa Plastics did have procedures in place for vehicles’ speed limits, crane use and a vehicle permitting process, there were no guidelines or restrictions on where vehicles may operate inside the plant. It was also determined that the piping was not properly protected from potential impact as stated in regulations for such facilities.
On the structure that collapsed, only three of the four supporting columns were covered with a fireproofing material. The columns that supported the pressure relief valves and emergency vent piping had no fireproofing at all. The columns that were not fireproofed bent in the ensuing fire while the fireproof columns were found upright during the after-accident investigation. The American Petroleum Institute issued a recommendation in July 1988 that steel supporting pressure relief and emergency flare lines should be fireproofed. The recommendation had been issued prior to construction of the Olefins II Unit.
The operators working in the unit at the time of the incident were unable to reach manual shut-off valves that would have isolated the damaged section from a fuel source. A remotely operated shut-off valve was located between the damaged section and the storage tanks but not between the damaged section and the distillation column. In addition, the pumps were controlled from a local control station that was also inaccessible. The pumps were eventually shut down from the central control building but there was not a remote shutdown control for the pumps in the central control room. Isolating the damaged section via a remotely operated valve upstream of the pumps could have ended the incident prior to ignition of the vapor cloud and would have definitely reduced the severity of the situation.
The CSB recommended that Formosa Plastics needed to revise policies for their hazard analysis to have a better evaluation of vehicle impact hazards, fireproofing and prevention or minimization of hazardous material releases. CSB also recommended fire resistant clothing for workers in any units at the Point Comfort complex that had a risk of flash fires.
In addition to Formosa Plastics, the safety board had recommendations for Kellogg, Brown and Root, the designers of the Olefins II unit. They had also had designed the original Olefin unit (Unit I) and had sold the same design plan to Formosa for Unit II as well as to other companies. The plant design had never been updated to account for new recommendations and requirements for safety standards. The safety board recommended that KBR advise all owners of similar plant designs of the potential problems and that KBR review all of its existing plant designs for safety updates before selling them to future clients.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that Formosa Plastics had committed one willful violation of "failure to provide employees with flame resistant clothing for protection against flash fire hazards". OSHA also cited Formosa for 13 other violations and fined the company $148,000. [4]
Illiopolis is a village in Sangamon County, Illinois, United States. The population was 891 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Springfield, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area.
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.
The Flixborough disaster was an explosion at a chemical plant close to the village of Flixborough, North Lincolnshire, England, on Saturday, 1 June 1974. It killed 28 and seriously injured 36 of the 72 people on site at the time. The casualty figures could have been much higher if the explosion had occurred on a weekday, when the main office area would have been occupied. A contemporary campaigner on process safety wrote "the shock waves rattled the confidence of every chemical engineer in the country".
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. 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.
A relief valve or pressure relief valve (PRV) is a type of safety valve used to control or limit the pressure in a system; excessive pressure might otherwise build up and create a process upset, instrument or equipment failure, explosion, or fire.
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.
On 25 September 1998 a catastrophic accident occurred at the Esso natural gas plant in Longford, Victoria, Australia. A pressure vessel ruptured resulting in a serious jet fire, which escalated to a conflagration extending to a large part of the plant. Fires lasted two days before they were finally extinguished.
Process safety is an interdisciplinary engineering domain focusing on the study, prevention, and management of large-scale fires, explosions and chemical accidents in process plants or other facilities dealing with hazardous materials, such as refineries and oil and gas production installations. Thus, process safety is generally concerned with the prevention of, control of, mitigation of and recovery from unintentional hazardous materials releases that can have a serious effect to people, plant and/or the environment.
On 23 October, 1989 at approximately 1:05 PM Central Daylight Time, a series of explosions occurred at Phillips Petroleum Company's Houston Chemical Complex in Pasadena, Texas, near the Houston Ship Channel. The initial blast registered 3.5 on the Richter scale, and the resulting fires took 10 hours to bring under control, as efforts to battle the fire were hindered due to damaged water pipes for the fire hydrants from the blast. The initial explosion was found to have resulted from a release of extremely flammable process gasses used to produce high-density polyethylene, a plastic used for various consumer food container products. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Phillips Petroleum Company $5,666,200 and fined Fish Engineering and Construction, inc, the maintenance contractor, $729,600. The event killed 23 employees and injured 314.
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, 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.
Hydrogen safety covers the safe production, handling and use of hydrogen, particularly hydrogen gas fuel and liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen possesses the NFPA 704's highest rating of four on the flammability scale because it is flammable when mixed even in small amounts with ordinary air. Ignition can occur at a volumetric ratio of hydrogen to air as low as 4% due to the oxygen in the air and the simplicity and chemical properties of the reaction. However, hydrogen has no rating for innate hazard for reactivity or toxicity. The storage and use of hydrogen poses unique challenges due to its ease of leaking as a gaseous fuel, low-energy ignition, wide range of combustible fuel-air mixtures, buoyancy, and its ability to embrittle metals that must be accounted for to ensure safe operation.
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.
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 2017 Arkema plant explosion was an industrial disaster that took place during Hurricane Harvey in Crosby, Texas. Flooding from the hurricane disabled the refrigeration system at the plant which manufactured organic peroxides. The unrefrigerated organic peroxides decomposed and self-ignited.
On January 24, 2020, a building at Watson Grinding and Manufacturing in northwest Houston, Texas, United States, exploded at 4:24 a.m. Debris was scattered as far as one-half mile (0.8 km), and approximately 200 nearby houses and businesses were damaged. Officials asked local residents to search for debris and body parts to assist with an investigation into the explosion's cause. An absence of zoning ordinances separating industrial areas from residences is known to prevail in the vicinity of the explosion.
A domino effect accident is an accident in which a primary undesired event sequentially or simultaneously triggers one or more secondary undesired events in nearby equipment or facilities, leading to secondary accidents more severe than the primary event. Thus, a domino effect accident is actually a chain of multiple events, which can be likened to a falling row of dominoes. The term knock-on accident is also used.
On June 14, 2021, a maintenance accident at the Chemtool Incorporated manufacturing plant in Rockton, Illinois, triggered a chemical fire that lasted four days and injured two emergency workers. Portions of the village, located north of Rockford near the Illinois-Wisconsin state line, were subject to a mandatory evacuation as a result of the fire. The fire was not contained until June 16, with the evacuations lasting until June 18.
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.
In the early morning of June 21, 2019, a fire and multiple explosions occurred at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A release of hydrocarbons and hydrofluoric acid in the refinery's alkylation unit caused a ground-hugging vapor cloud which rapidly ignited, leading to three separate explosions minutes apart from each other. The largest explosion, a BLEVE, sent a vessel fragment flying 2,000 feet (610 m) across the Schuylkill River. Five employees sustained minor injuries, but there were ultimately no fatalities. The refinery announced it would shut down operations the same month, and filed for bankruptcy a month later.