Event
- Event ID
- 555
- Quality
- Description
A severe fire in a hydrogen compressor building in a an oil sands refinery reportedly started in a 1,500 psi (103 bar) lube oil system.
Fire fighting was difficult because of 40 degrees F temperature (4 degree celsius).
The building reportedly housed three centrifugal hydrogen recycle compressors, a centrifugal natural gas compressor and two 4,000 horsepower reciprocating compressors.- 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
- compressor / booster / pump
- Failure mode
- leak & ignition
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical industry
- Sub-application
- Hydrodesulphurisation process
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
Reactor
- Process temperature range [C]
- ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
- Process pressure range [MPa]
- medium to high pressure (10 to 50 MPa)
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
- Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION of the Installation:
Feed (diesel stock) preheat is supplied via effluent exchange and a bottom fired vertical tube, four pass "can type" furnace. Each heater pass consists of 10 rows of 9-chrome tubes around the circumference of the radiant section and 12 rows of extended surface 9-chrome tubes in the convection section. External inlet block valves on each pass have been used for flow balancing. Combined heater outlet (reactor inlet) temperature regulates the fuel gas to four combination burners.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Emergency action
Fire fighting was difficult because of 40 degrees F temperatures.
In-depth data
- Release type
- no release
- Released amount (kg)
- 0
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Release pressure [MPa]
- 10
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
References
- Sources categories
- ICHEME
- Reference & weblink
event 2319 of the UK database ICHEMEin PDF format.
https://www.icheme.org/knowledge/safety-centre/resources/accident-data/
(accessed October 2020)
