Fire in a Fertilizer Plant
the fire was detected by an employee during the normal inspection tour, . It was caused by the ignition of a leak of process gas (hydrogen, methane and water vapour) from the reforming furnaces. The plant operator stopped the ammonia unit by manually triggering the safety emergency procedure. The natural gas supply was cut off, and this immediately extinguished the flame.The nitric acid unit was kept running at minimum rate. The hot ammonium nitrate solution and ammonium nitrate units are shut down due to lack of ammonia. The nitric acid production unit was restarted in the morning, the ammonium nitrate unit the following day.(ARIA database)
Event Date
February 12, 2020
Record Quality Indicator
Region / Country
Event Initiating System
Classification of the Physical Effects
Nature of the Consequences
Causes
Cause Comments
The ARIA report does not provide any cause. This incident is very similar to the one described in HIAD event 983, which occurred in the same plant in 2019.
Facility Information
Application Type
Application
Specific Application Supply Chain Stage
Components Involved
reformer
Storage/Process Medium
Location Type
Location description
Industrial Area
Operational Condition
Pre-event Summary
This incident is very similar to the one described in HIAD event 983, which occurred in the same plan in 2019.
Consequences
Number of Injured Persons
1
Currency
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
This incident is very similar to the one described in HIAD event 983, which occurred in the same plan in 2019. At that time, the leak had been found on a gasket, and all the gasket of the same furnace were replaced. The description of the event in ARIA (see references) does not contain enough details to understand incident causes and deduce a lesson learned. One general observation can be issued: despite the enormous progress achieved in safety records of hydrogen in industrial processes, attention to preventive measures is still required.
Event Nature
Emergency Action
Unknown
Release Type
Release Substance
Ignition Source
Detonation
No
Deflagration
No
High Pressure Explosion
No
High Voltage Explosion
No
Source Category
References
References
Event description no 55060 in the French database ARIA (accessed October 2021)