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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Explosion at a hydrocracking reactor of a refinery

Event

Event ID
614
Quality
Description
An explosion occurred in a hydrocracking reactor fitted with TOC which is a automatic cut-off system for raw oil and hydrogen supply. On the day of the incident, the operation was stopped with TOC being triggered, but the cause was not identified. Hydrogen circulation was restarted, and some 5 hours later, the loud explosion took place around a low pressure separator, rupturing the reactor and throwing debris in all directions. The contents were released to form a vapour cloud which ignited followed by a fire ball.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
Macro-region
Asia
Country
Japan
Date
Root causes
Unknown (No additional details provided)

Facility

Application
Petrochemical Industry
Sub-application
Hydrocracking process
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected
oil and raw supply, low pressure separator, reactor
Location type
Unknown
Location description
Industrial Area
Operational condition
Pre-event occurrences
The pre-event related to the hydrogen-event was an automatic stop of the unit, before the hydrogen was recirculated.
Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
A TOC is an automatic cut-off system for the supply of raw oil (feedstock) and hydrogen. It is designed to stop the flow of highly flammable materials into the hydrocracking reactor in an emergency, such as a fire or explosion, to prevent the incident from escalating.

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
1
Number of fatalities
0

Event Nature

Release type
gas mixture
Involved substances (% vol)
unknown
Presumed ignition source
Not reported

References

Reference & weblink

Orignal source lost. RISCAD is closed.

JRC assessment