Sharing others’ accidents (fires) 5

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Fire and Explosion Incident at a Petrochemical Additive Manufacturing Plant I. Course of EventsThis petrochemical additive manufacturing plant is a state-owned chemical enterprise that uses residue oil and wax oil as primary raw materials to produce 90# gasoline, light diesel, liquefied petroleum gas, and lubricants. The plant has fixed assets worth 100 million yuan, 220 employees, and an annual production capacity of 70,000 tons of oil and gas products. To address the problem of decolorizing black diesel, the plant decided to adopt a decolorization process using an additive provided by a certain county. On the morning of July 1st, Plant Manager Dong XX convened Deputy Managers Bai XX, who is in charge of production, safety, and equipment, as well as Shi XX, the head of the Production and Power Equipment Department, and Xu XX, its deputy head, to discuss the implementation of the black diesel decolorization process. It was arranged at the meeting that Bai XX and the Production Power Department would be responsible for implementing it. That afternoon, Bai XX discussed implementing this task with Shi XX and Xu XX in the Production and Operations Department, and it was decided that Xu XX would formulate a specific plan and be responsible for its execution. After the meeting, Xu XX developed a decolorization process and formulated a treatment plan for black diesel: an oil pipeline was drawn from tank No. 307, and the fluid was pumped via pipeline pumps into the mixing tank and the chemical addition tank, before being pumped further by pipeline pumps into tank No. 204 for sedimentation and decolorization. Subsequently, Bai XX directly arranged for the maintenance team in the power repair workshop to carry out the work. At 11 a.m. on July 2, Cui XX, the deputy head of the plant’s safety and security department, was conducting an inspection when he noticed workers carrying out welding work near Tank No. 204. He then checked the \"hot work permit\" issued to those workers and found that it was a level-2 hot work permit issued by Zhang XX, the assistant to the head of the oil products workshop. Cui XX believed that the location where work was to be carried out fell under the category of a Class 1 hot work area, and therefore a Class 1 \"hot work permit\" was required. Since blind flanges had not been installed on tank No. 204, he signed the Class 2 \"hot work permit\" and changed it to a Class 1 \"hot work permit\". At around 17:00 on that day, Dong XX, the director of the Security Department, and Cui XX, the deputy director, went to the construction site again while conducting inspections around the factory area. They saw Bai XX there as well, with workers carrying out welding work. At around 18:40, an explosion and fire broke out in tank No. 204 at the construction site, which ignited tank No. 308 containing diesel. As a result, 10 people working on site died and 1 was seriously injured. Two oil tanks with a total volume of 500 cubic meters were destroyed, as well as 591 square meters of buildings, over 500 meters of pipeline corridors, 360 tons of diesel, and an area of 6,000 square meters was affected by the fire. The direct economic loss amounted to 2.19 million yuan. II. AnalysisThis is a serious liability accident caused by illegal command. During the renovation of the black diesel decolorization process, welding operations ignited the flammable vapors in Tank No. 204, resulting in an explosion and fire; this was the direct cause of the accident. Order No. 10 of the former Ministry of Chemical Industry, the “Six Prohibitions for Hot Work,” stipulates: “Hot work is prohibited unless the production system is reliably isolated.” The company’s rules and regulations also stipulate that: \"Whenever work involving open flames is to be carried out on materials, equipment, containers, or pipelines that are flammable or explosive during production, storage, or transportation, the source of these materials must first be cut off and blind flanges must be installed.\" The company failed to include safety requirements in the developed process plan for decolorizing black diesel, and did not use blind flanges to isolate the pipes leading to tank No. 204 during welding ； The Security Department issued a \"hot work permit\" for construction without establishing safety measures in the workshop nor installing blind plates, which led to the explosion of flammable vapor in tank No. 204 when exposed to an open flame – this was the main cause of the accident. During the implementation of the black diesel decolorization process, the plant manager in charge and the project leader gave illegal instructions; they ordered workers to install and weld the decolorization equipment for black diesel without isolating Tank No. 204. Their failure to effectively stop such illegal operations during the construction was a key cause of the accident. It’s most cost-effective to learn from others’ accidents as if they were one’s own*.