Sunday, October 14, 2012

Chevron refinery update, pipe corrosion ignored year prior


San Francisco Chronicle/Jaxon Van Derbeken, 10/13/12, "Chevron ignored risk in '11, workers say."

Chevron's Richmond oil refinery ignored pipe corrosion
"Unchecked corrosion, the suspected culprit  in the August blaze that destroyed part of Chevron's Richmond refinery, was responsible for another fire at the plant last year that prompted workers to complain to regulators that the company was ignoring the problem, according to state inspection documents obtained by  The Chronicle.

Gas prices are higher while areas of the plant are sidelined
The state Division of Occupational Safety and Health inspector who investigated the smaller October 2011 fire - which occurred during a scheduled maintenance shutdown and was quickly extinguished - documented allegations from two workers that corrosion was attacking the refinery and that employees could be at risk.  "We're afraid something is going to fall through the cracks," one worker told Cal/OSHA safety inspector Carla Fritz, who was investigating the fire in furnace piping at the refinery's lube oil processing plant. His comments are documented in notes Fritz took during her two-day plant visit in November."  

....  Chevron's response.  In response to questions about corrosion and last October's fire, Chevron said it "took the appropriate actions to protect the safety of its employees and facilities" after the blaze. "We immediately responded, shut down the affected operations, evacuated all nonessential staff and successfully contained the incident."  Read article, 2 pages. 


Posted by Kathy Meeh

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The same thing would have happened had Whole Energy built their little 6th grade science project.

And to think some people supported this crappy project.

Anonymous said...

And someone said its as safe as a gas station

Hey we can remove the second firewall and save some $$