MOSCOW (MRC) -- A massive fire broke out on the premises ofan Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) refinery at Haldia in Purba Medinipur district on Tuesday, reported The Indian Express.
At least three persons were killed and 44 injured after the fire, police said.
The cause of the blaze, which sources termed as a “flash fire” that broke out after a drill, is yet to be ascertained.
It was extinguished by a fire team and the situation is now under control, the sources said.
The refinery has been under shutdown since the first week of this month as maintenance work is underway at many major units, they added.
“In the motor spirit quality (MSQ) unit, during shutdown-related work, at around 14:50 hours, today an incident occurred. The primary cause seems to be a flash fire leading to burn injuries to 44 persons and 3 persons have unfortunately succumbed to their injuries,” read a statement issued by Haldia Refinery authorities.
As MRC informed before, in June 2021, IOC let contracts to McDermott International Ltd. to provide engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning (EPCC) services for separate projects involving the addition of new units at two of its refineries in India.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing PE and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,047,100 tonnes in the first ten months of 2021, up by 17% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,226,530 tonnes in January-October 2021, up by 26% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding stat-copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
Indian Oil Corporation Limited, or IndianOil, is an Indian state-owned oil and gas corporation with its headquarters in New Delhi, India.
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