Event
- Event ID
- 839
- Quality
- Description
- A fire broke out at a flange inside a heat exchanger of the catalytic reforming unit of a refinery.
This heat exchanger had the purpose to pre-heat the load of heavy oil and hydrogen by recovering the heat of the products coming from the reactors.
No flame and smoke were visible from the outside. The unit was stopped, depressurised and kept cooled with water. The fire was fought with foam and brought under control two hours later.
The amount of product burned was less than 1 t. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Fire (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- France
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Flange
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Hc-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Material Degradation (Generic)
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical Industry
- Sub-application
- catalytic reforming process
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- flange of a heat exchanger, catalytic reforming unit
- Location type
- Open
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Post-event summary
- The amount of product burned is less than 1 t.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2,
heavy oil - Released amount
- 1 t (total)
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
ARIA data base <br />
event no. 30221
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- ARIA
