【Petroleum Sector】The “popular” aspects of petrochemical industry + “Fire Dragon” (037)

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I used to work on a small oil refining plant. It was built quite a while ago, so the equipment was outdated and the supporting facilities were very basic; for example, the drainage ditches were open, and waste oil and sewage were discharged together... I remember during one maintenance session, the plant’s distillation towers needed to be serviced. Due to the plant’s age, the pipeline that carried waste oil from the bottom of the towers to the storage tanks was blocked, so the oil had to be discharged directly into the ditches on site (the safety awareness at that time was really poor). Everyone was enthusiastic about carrying out the maintenance tasks: some were opening manholes, some were removing caps, some were applying grease, while others were just standing around doing nothing... At that time, an external contractor was working on modifying a pipeline and carrying out welding operations. Happily enough, there was a ditch right beneath the area where welding was taking place. Although the ditch had been covered with some metal sheets and rock wool, the coverage wasn’t effective enough. Suddenly, sparks from the welding process fell through the gaps in the metal sheets into the ditch. In an instant, the ditch became like something seen in movies – a flame dragon erupted there immediately. The underground lid covering the oil well connected to the ditch also flew into the air like a cannon. Everyone at the scene panicked and tried to put out the fire using fire extinguishers, rushing towards the ditch to extinguish the flames. But before they could reach the source of the fire, the fire extinguishers ran out of pressure, and the flames spread back again. In the end, it was only through everyone’s combined efforts that the fire was put out. Since then, direct discharge of oil has been prohibited. Thinking back to those days, it really feels like life is sometimes just like walking around doing nothing········