Propane leak could be cause of blaze

Propane leak could be cause of blaze

	Published : Thu, 22 Feb 2007 18:29 By : Agencies Print this Story

SUNRAY, Texas (AP) - Witness accounts to federal investigators looking into a fire at a Texas Panhandle refinery last week suggest that liquid propane ignited to cause the blaze, a U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigator said Wednesday.

Liquid propane vaporizes quickly in the atmosphere and expands to form a vapor cloud, which ignited a short time after it was released, Don Holmstrom, a supervisory investigator for the board, said during a conference call.

Some contents of three 1-ton chlorine cylinders also may have been released due to exposure to the fire, he said.

Chlorine is a toxic gas but Valero, which owns the refinery, said tests by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality showed no impact off the site. The Department of Public Safety has started allowing access to roadways nearby.

'We understand that these cylinders have now been secured by Valero,' Holmstrom said. He said there was no visible fire damage to a series of large propane storage spheres.

Valero Energy Corp., which has said it doesn't have a timeline for operations to resume at the refinery, is cooperating with the investigation, he said.

There was no evidence of explosion damage from about 200 feet away from the area affected by the fire, which was as close as investigators got to the McKee refinery Tuesday, Holmstrom said.

The investigators saw substantial heat damage to equipment and piping in a section of the propane deasphalting unit, which processes residual fuel at very high temperatures, he said.

One of the 14 workers hospitalized after Friday's blaze at the Valero-owned refinery remained in critical condition in Lubbock on Wednesday.

San Antonio-based Valero, the largest refiner in North America, operates 17 refineries, 16 in North America and one in Aruba. The McKee refinery is one of six in Texas and has a capacity of 170,000 barrels per day.

Sunray, which has population of about 2,000, is about 60 miles north of Amarillo.