MOSCOW (MRC) -- French oil and gas company Total said on Monday that a gas leak at its 247 Mbpd Gonfreville refinery in Normandy had caused an explosion that injured five workers, reported Reuters.
The blast in northern France occurred during a scheduled maintenance work on a gas compressor, Total said, adding that emergency services were on site to contain the gas leak and fire.
"There is no risk of it spreading within or outside the site," Total said in a statement.
A union official at the site told Reuters that it was still unclear what had sparked the explosion.
"There were some workers in the vicinity and five of them were hit by the detonation," a union official said, adding that units feeding to the pipe were being shut down while firefighters try to contain the flames.
As MRC informed before, in December 2014, Total permanently shut its high density polyethylene (HDPE) line in Belgium. The plant will be shut permanently owing to weak margins which have arisen on account of cheap imports in the region. Located at Antwerp, the line has a production capacity of 70,000 mt/year.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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