Event
- Event ID
- 169
- Quality
- Description
The event occurred at a plant processing bitumen and tar from oil sands. A leak occurred on the residue hydro-conversion unit, which upgraded bitumen into synthetic crude oil. The released mixture, containing mainly hydrogen with some light hydrocarbons and hydrogen sulphide, ignited. Acocrding to online news this looked like a "giant fireball eruption".
The fire was extinguished about one hour later.
No injury.- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- fire
- Macro-region
- North America
- Country
- Canada
- Date
- Component involved
- reactor / oven / furnace / test chamber
- Failure mode
- leak & ignition
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 28/02/2009
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical industry
- Sub-application
- Bitument extraction
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
Unknown
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
- UNKNOWN
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANT
According to Wikipedia, the plant was an oilsand upgrader, a facility processing crude bitumen from oil sands into a wide range of synthetic crude oils.
In this plant a hydrogenation process was adopted because well suited to the clean bitumen extracted on site. Hydrogenation was also producing lower levels of sulfur dioxide emissions than the alternative coking
The plant had its own hydrogen manufacturing unit and produces most of the hydrogen required for the hydrogen-addition process.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Post-event summary
About 3,000 non-essential workers were sent home, but no one was injured in the incident. The evacuation laster 2.5 hour. No hydrogen sulphide in the air around the plant
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2,
light HC,
H2S - Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- news
- Reference & weblink
CBC news of Nov. 19, 2007
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/3-000-workers-sent-home-after-f…
(accessed March 2026)For a description of the plant, see Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scotford_Upgrader&oldid=1320…
(accessed May 2026)
