Event
- Event ID
- 645
- Quality
- Description
- An explosion and fire broke out at a heavy oil direct desulfurization unit at a refinery. The location of the explosion was approximately at 20 meters height.
The fire burned within a radius of approximately 30 meters on a portion of the refinery site, which covered approximately 15,000 m².
The fire was extinguished approximately 10 hours later. The refinery stopped the supply of heavy oil and the 1,000 kl of heavy oil and hydrogen remaining in the equipment was left to burn out. The fire department intervened attempting to extinguish the fire by injecting nitrogen into the piping.
According to the refinery, prior to the explosion, multiple gas detectors detected an abnormality in an area containing a high-temperature, high-pressure separation tank, which separates heavy oil from gas, and staff were on their way to inspect it.
(translation from Japanese by means of Google Translate) - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Asia
- Country
- Japan
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Reactor / Oven / Furnace / Test Chamber
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Oil-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical Industry
- Sub-application
- desulphurisation unit
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- separation tank
- Location type
- Open
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2
heavy oil - Release duration
- unknown
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
Journal of Japan Society for Safety Engineering,Vol.42(2),p.117(2003)<br />
In Japanese, available at:<br />
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/safety/42/2/42_117/_pdf/-char/en<br />Journal of Japan Society for Safety Engineering,Vol.42(2),p.117(2003) <br />
Google translate
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- Scientific article