The objective of the investigation into what caused a massive explosion and fire last week at the El Segundo de Chevron factory turned to a jet fuel processing unit at the southeast corner of the sprawling oil refinery.
Chevron officials said little about what caused the explosion, but confirmed the Isomax unit, which converts oil into greater products such as throwing fuel, remains closed since hell, even if other refinery operations continue.
“Until we can understand everything that happened here and make sure that this will not happen again, we will not reddemnate it,” said Ross Allen, spokesperson for Chevron, adding that the refinery continues to produce fuel to throw, as well as essence and diesel, other units.
Although refinery fires are not unknown – the Chevron’s on -site fire fighting team is specifically preparing for them – industry experts say that the extent of El Segundo’s fire asserts the concerns of what has gone wrong and requires in -depth investigation. The explosion transformed the night sky through the shiny orange of South Bay and sent a roar that resounded the kilometers. No one died in the incident and the damage was limited to the imprint of the refinery. Only a few workers reported minor injuries.
“I think that Chevron was extremely, extremely lucky … (given) the size of the explosion here,” said Najmedin Meshkati, professor of engineering at the USC who was an expert for the American Committee for Chemical Security and Risks because he surveyed other important refinery fires.
Meshkati and several other experts interviewed by the Times said that it was always difficult to know exactly what led to El Segundo’s fire that night, because few details were shared by local or chevron investigators, but there are probable culprits.
Andrew Lipow, president of the consulting company based in Houston, Lipow Oil Associates, said that, according to his experience, refinery fires can often be traced at equipment failures, in particular those who lead to a situation which “allows hot oil and gas to reach the atmosphere”.
“He finds a source of ignition and a shooting results,” said Lipow.
An error in the oil sensors of the refinery could lead to a larger system failure, which can end with major flames, according to Faisal Khan, director of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center based in Texas, which offers training and education related to chemical security.
Oil sensors – which monitor well conditions and measure pressure, temperature and flows – have been used for a long time. But in the past decade, technology has advanced to the point where there may be excessive dependence on data, Khan said. This can cause problems when refineries do not have a backup mechanism to follow the information or a person who can reveal updates, he said.
And once such a fire is doing, it is particularly difficult to fight because of how the fuel is easily available in a refinery, said Casey Snow, head of the El Segundo fire service.
The fire service trains to isolate and extinguish these types of fires by “controlling the valves that can restrict the flow” of the fuel, said Snow. It will also use water to try to limit where active fire could spread.
Neither Chevron nor the state and premises investigators provided details on how the fire became Thursday and Friday in El Segundo.
Even if the destruction was not obvious from the outside of the refinery, Lipow said that there were probably still significant damage. With a fire of this size, heat alone can melt the equipment, and there may be direct fire damage even if it is not clear for someone who looks at the outside refinery, he said.
“You can start to fire in a part of the refinery … and it spreads because there is so much intense warmth that it causes failure of other equipment nearby,” said Lipow.
But there is often less dramatic damage to infrastructure – even for the fire scale – because these refinery fires mainly burn fuel.
“As a rule, what you see burning is the fuel inside the unit and not the structure itself,” said Allen, a spokesperson for Chevron. “In many cases, firefighters use water to extinguish and cool the structures nearby to prevent fire from spreading further. This minimizes additional damage to installations. “
But minimizing the scope of this fire is not useful, said Meshkati, the USC engineering teacher.
He said he hoped that those responsible for investigating this fire seek a “confluence of three contributory factors”, which he separates into factors related to humanity, organizational and technological.
A human factor can be something like an operator error; Organizational factors are problems that arise from business decisions, such as not provide enough training or staff; And technological factors are equipment failures, such as corrosion, he said. In the 2015 explosion of the Torrance refinery of Torrance of the Exxxe of Mobil Corp., Federal investigators found that a combination of organizational and technological problems caused the major explosion.
“We must examine each of these three factors, then the interaction of these factors,” said Meshkati.
Meshkati’s main concern is that the investigation into this fire does not end up being as deepened and strict as it could be, especially if the Committee of American Investigators of Chemical Security and Risks is not entirely funded or endowed, as is now the case – a situation that has worried certain residents and environmental groups.
“We have not heard or seen from the chemical security committee, which is the first refineries accident investigator in the United States,” said Meshkati. “It’s, I think, a parody.”
A Times survey at the Federal Chemical Board has received an automatic response outside the office, citing the closure of the federal government. The Trump administration also proposed budget cuts that would finance the board of directors.
But there are already several other fire surveys. Chevron officials said that the company was working on its own survey and that the air quality management district of the South Coast would examine the potential violations of air quality and license conditions.
The California Department of Industrial Relations, which includes the CAL / OSHA process security management unit, has also opened an investigation into the fire of the refinery, conducting in -depth investigations to determine the cause of incidents and if state security standards have been raped.
It was not immediately clear when these results were ready, but Chevron is required to subject a report to the air quality district within 30 days of analysis of potential causes and equipment failures.
Allen, Chevron’s spokesperson, did not answer questions about the role of the Federal Chemical Board or a possible calendar for Chevron’s conclusions of his investigation.
Local authorities did not report any injury after the explosion. But on Tuesday, four workers claimed to have been injured in the incident, according to a trial brought in Texas. One of their lawyers, Victoria Alford, said that they had been injured while they had fled the massive explosion, calling the physical injuries of “orthopedic” factory workers, and said they were also suffering from anxiety.
