Event
- Event ID
- 639
- Quality
- Description
- An operator on patrol discovered a flame coming from the heat exchanger flange of a gasoline hydrodesulphurisation plant and reported it. The plant was immediately shut down.
An investigation revealed that the bolts on the flange were not properly tightened, causing the release of gasoline and hydrogen and their ignition. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Fire (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- Asia
- Country
- Japan
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Flange
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING CAUSE was loss of tightness of a flange due to loose bolts
The ROOT CAUSE could be attributed to incorrect tightening of the bolts during installation, which was not able to compensate for the differential thermal expansion of bolts and flange.
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical Industry
- Sub-application
- Hydrodesulphurisation process
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- Flange, heat exchanger
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2
gasoline - Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
High Pressure Gas Accident Cases Database of the KHK (High Pressure Gas Safety Association): <br />
https://www.khk.or.jp/public_information/incident_investigation/hpg_inc… />
(accessed May 2025)The first entry in HIAD was coming from RISCAD, which is now closed.<br />
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- KHK
