Asia-Pacific

3 dead, 4 hurt in blast, fire at US refinery

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-04-03 01:39

ANACORTES, Washington - An explosion and fire at a Washington state oil refinery shook homes and shot flames into the night sky early Friday, killing three people and critically injuring four others.

The fire struck the Tesoro Corp refinery in Anacortes, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of Seattle on Puget Sound, at about 12:30 am, the company said. The blaze occurred while maintenance work was being performed and was extinguished in about 90 minutes.

Four employees are hospitalized with major burns over the majority of their bodies. Susan Gregg-Hanson, a spokeswoman for Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, said they are two women, ages 29 and 36, and two men, ages 34 and 41.

All employees have been accounted for and investigators are trying to determine the exact cause of the blaze, said Tesoro spokesman Greg Wright in San Antonio. The extent of the damage is unknown, but parts of the refinery continue to operate, Wright said. The refinery has about 300 employees.

Nearby residents, some five miles (eight kilometers) from the complex, called Washington TV stations after midnight with reports of an explosion, saying flames were being blown by high winds.

The blast occurred in the naphtha unit of the refinery. Naphtha is a volatile, flammable liquid derived during the refining process, and the unit had undergone maintenance and was in the process of returning to operation -- a "typically dangerous" step of turning up heat and pressure, Wright said.

"It's a volatile process," Wright said. "We are diligent about being safe."

San Antonio-based Tesoro Corp is an independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products. The Anacortes refinery can refine about 130,000 barrels of crude daily, according to the company. The US Energy Information Administration Web site ranks it as the 59th largest refinery in the US.

Tesoro has owned the Anacortes refinery since 1998. It mainly processes Alaska North Slope crude and makes gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, mostly for Washington and Oregon.