Fire breaks out at Lyondell-Citgo plant

07:10 AM CDT on Monday, October 17, 2005

From 11 News Staff Reports

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One person is recovering from injuries from an explosion at the Lyondell-Citgo plant along the Houston Ship Channel.

It happened while workers were trying to restart a unit that had been shut down for Hurricane Rita.

Firefighters quickly put out the flames at the refinery located off of Lawndale and Allen-Genoa.

KHOU-TV

The Lyondell-Citgo plant is off of Lawndale and Allen-Genoa.

Sunday's explosion occured in the cracking unit, which is where oil is superheated before being made into gasoline.

Company officials said the substance that burned is similar to diesel fuel.

Plant officials said not many people were working in the area of the explosion when it happened.

The explosion happened around noon and was out in about an hour.

The injured worker was hospitalized with minor burns to his hands and arms.

Officials said they found no detectable concentration of anything harmful in the air.

Workers have re-started other units at the plant since the hurricane, and the facility is running at 50-percent capacity.

When it's at full strength, the refinery produces 268,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

The plant has 875 employees, and last year the facility announced revenues of $5.6 billion.

In 1999 the plant went to its highest level of emergency after a fire broke out in one of its processing units.

The smoke could be seen for miles, and one worker was seriously hurt. G overnment regulators fined Lyondell-Citgo more than $80,000.

In 1998, flames soared 40 to 50 feet into the air during a fire at a gasoline processing unit. No one was injured, and no evacuations were ever called.