Four Workers Are Killed in U.K.’s Deadliest Refinery Explosion Since 1974

[bemildred]

Source: Bloomberg

Four workers were killed when a storage tank exploded and caused a fire at Chevron Corp (CVX)’s Pembroke plant in Wales yesterday, in the U.K.’s worst refinery disaster for almost four decades.

Another worker was hospitalized with serious injuries, San Ramon, California-based Chevron said in a statement. Output at the 210,000 barrel-a-day refinery wasn’t disrupted and an investigation is under way.

Yesterday’s explosion was the deadliest since 28 people were killed in a blast at a chemical plant at Flixborough in northern England in 1974, according to the U.K. Petroleum Industry Association Ltd. A fire in a crude distillation unit at Total SA’s 221,000 barrel-a-day Lindsey refinery in northeast England last year left one person dead.

The Pembroke refinery, which is in the process of being sold to Valero Energy Corp. (VLO), processes crude from the North Sea, Russia and West Africa into diesel, gasoline and jet fuel. The storage tank that exploded contained no crude, minimizing the disruption to operations.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-02/chevron-pembroke-oil-refinery-has-fire-fire-department-says.html

[cyberpj]

1. Wow. I was reading for details on the 4 workers and couldn't help being struck by these:

snip-
Output at the 210,000 barrel-a-day refinery wasn’t disrupted and an investigation is under way.
snip-
The storage tank that exploded contained no crude, minimizing the disruption to operations.


By all means.... let's worry most about the disruption to the business operations.

[bemildred]

2. You gotta know what's important. nt