Exxon Faces Local Lawsuit over Refinery Fire

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Exxon Mobil Corp was hit with a lawsuit on Thursday over pollution from a fire at the company's Baytown Olefins Plant, according to an attorney for Harris County, Texas, which filed the suit.

The fire was being investigated by federal and state agencies. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) were at the scene to determine the cause of a blaze that raged for hours on Wednesday and raised a column of black smoke over the area.

The suit by Harris County, which includes Baytown, is the second lawsuit against the company involving fires at the plant this year.

The suit seeks court orders to prevent future fires at Exxon's giant Baytown refining and petrochemical complex, said Rock Owens, managing attorney for the environmental practice in the Harris County Attorney's Office.

"It's disappointing to me for a company to have these kinds of problems with the potential for some kind of disaster," he said.

Exxon did not reply to a request for comment on the lawsuit. In a statement on Thursday, spokesman Sarah Nordin said the fire has been extinguished and all employees affected by the fire were cleared to return to work.

Because of the fire, production at Exxon's 560,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) Baytown refinery remains cut back, the company confirmed. It did not say by how much production was affected.

Exxon said earlier that 66 workers had been examined at a clinic for possible injuries, though not all had required treatment. Of those, 37 were treated for injuries including minor burns, Jason Duncan, manager of the Baytown Olefins Plant, said on Wednesday.

Officials ordered Baytown residents to remain indoors with their air conditioning turned off for about four hours after an explosion set off the fire.

Harris County officials are asking a state court to order an investigation to determine the root cause of the fire in a propylene recovery unit, and to order Exxon to take steps to prevent similar fires from happening in the future, Owens said.

Harris County is seeking similar orders in connection with a lawsuit filed in March over a hydrotreater fire in the Baytown refinery, he said. 

Reporting by Erwin Seba

Categories: Legal Finance Casualties

Related Stories

Woodside to Shed Some Trinidad and Tobago Assets for $206M

Keel Laying for Wind Flyer Trimaran Crew Boat

ORE Catapult and Japan’s FLOWRA to Jointly Advance Floating Wind

Second Hai Long Substation Heads to Project Site Offshore Taiwan

China Unveils Plans for New Offshore Wind Farms to Tackle Carbon Emissions

Six New Gas Wells in Line for BP’s Shah Deniz Field in Caspian Sea

Petronas Preps for Sabah-Sarawak Gas Pipeline Decom Op

AIRCAT 35 Crewliner Vessels Delivered to Service TotalEnergies Angola

CNOOC’s South China Sea Oil Field Goes On Stream

Vestas Lands First 15MW Offshore Wind Turbine Order in Asia Pacific

Current News

MODEC, Sumitomo Partner Up for Delivery of Gato do Mato FPSO

Chuditch Gas Field Up for Summer Drilling Ops as Sunda Reshapes Ownership Structure

EnQuest Bags Two Production Sharing Contracts off Indonesia

Hanwha Drilling’s Tidal Action Drillship En Route to Petrobras’ Roncador Field

China's ENN, Zhenhua Oil Ink LNG Supply Deals with ADNOC

MODEC Wins ExxonMobil Guyana’s Hammerhead FPSO Contract

India Stretches Bids Deadline for 13 Offshore Deep-Sea Mineral Blocks

Indonesia Awards Oil and Gas Blocks to Boost Reserves

Sapura Energy Nets $22.6M in Offshore Support Vessel Contracts

CNOOC Puts Into Production New Oil Field in South China Sea

Subscribe for AOG Digital E‑News

AOG Digital E-News is the subsea industry's largest circulation and most authoritative ENews Service, delivered to your Email three times per week

https://accounts.newwavemedia.com