Event
- Event ID
- 743
- Quality
- Description
The accident started with a leakage at the desulphurisation unit of the distilled petroleum intermediate.The intermediate and hydrogen were released, ignited and exploded, with a later fire, in the form of a pool fire and a jet flame from a pipe.
The initial gravity of the event gave rise to the activation of the External Emergency Plan.- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- Spain
- Date
- Component involved
- pipe (generic)
- Failure mode
- rupture & ignition
- Initiating cause
- material degradation (internal corrosion / erosion)
- Root CAUSE analysis
An investigation was carried out and specifically looked at all modifications, maintenance operations, construction works and inspections performed on the installation. According to both sources (see References), a phenomenon of corrosion and erosion of a pipe due to a bad design of the manifold caused a pipe rupture.
- Root causes
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical industry
- Sub-application
- Hydrodesulphurisation process
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
desulphurization unit
- Process temperature range [C]
- High temperature (100°C to 500°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- medium to high pressure (10 to 50 MPa)
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Post-event summary
About 70 m3 of kerosene and 200 Nm3 hydrogen were involved in the accident, which led to material damage in the affected unit.
- Emergency action
External Emergency Plan was activated.
Lesson Learnt
- Corrective Measures
(1) The design of the manifold was modified to improve flow and reduce corrosion.
(2) The plant emergency plan was also improved, in particularly the communication between the Crisis Unit and the different actors.
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
- Explosion type
References
- Sources categories
- ARIA
- Reference & weblink
Event no. 29610 of the French database ARIA (accessed December 2020)
Event description in the European database eMARS (accessed December 2020)
