It was the 26th incident in 26 months in the industry
Still, no one is calling for improved safety measures or even showing concern about the rash of fires and explosions that have killed about two dozen industry staff in two years.
The fires and explosions are happening at the rate of one a month, which one would expect would be sufficient to arouse some expression of concern and some emphasis on safety. But it has not. The media note each passing event, but do not put them together and alert the public to the frequency of fires and explosions in the industry.
The latest incident was a fire Friday in the Bandar Imam petrochemical complex in the city of Mahshahr on the Persian Gulf coast. Shana, the Oil Ministry’s news agency, said the fire was caused by a leak in a gas line.
Qodratollah Nasiri, the security chief of the National Petrochemical Co., was quoted as saying, “Unfortunately, one person was killed.” He said the fire was swiftly extinguished. “The processing units at the plant were not damagedÖ. But some of the units are offline.”
The governor of Mahshahr said four of those injured were in critical condition.
The fires and explosions have been all over the industry, involving pipelines, refineries, drilling rigs and tanker trucks.
Many of the descriptions of the impact and seriousness of the incidents have been contradictory.
One incident, for example, was a fire at the Abadan oil refinery September 7 of last year. That was in a gasoline production cracker unit. The Fars news agency quoted Majlis Deputy Abdollah Kaabi, vice chair of the Majlis Energy Committee, as saying the fire was in the very same unit of the refinery that burned the previous May 24 when President Ahmadi-nejad was visiting. He said four workmen were injured.
But Abadan refinery manager Moslem Rahimi denied that story. He told the Mehr news agency no one had been injured. He said all that happened was that some sparks from one of the Abadan furnaces set some grass near that furnace on fire, burning an area that was just 10 meters (30 feet) across. He said the fire had no impact on any of the refinery’s operations.
Most analysts believe the rash of incidents reflects poor maintenance and little emphasis on safety precautions. However, there is always speculation about sabotage.
The 26 destructive events have been widely scattered at locations all around the country, which makes an organized campaign of sabotage appear unlikely. Also, no opposition group has claimed credit for any of the incidents. And no official has even broached sabotage as suspected.
The incidents have varied widely In February 2011, a fire engulfed several oil tanks on the island of Qeshm in the Persian Gulf. Heydar Yarveisi, head of the Iranian Offshore Oil Co., said the blaze was caused by a lightning strike on an oil tank in a tank farm—one of the few cases in which an official ascribed a cause. He did not explain why lightning rods failed to protect the tanks from a strike.
Another incident involved the rupture of a huge 48-inch diameter crude oil pipeline near the city of Daylam on the Persian Gulf coast in Bushehr province. Some reports said there was an explosion in the pipeline; others simply described the pipeline as breaking open from corrosion.
Mohammad Baqeri, an official of the Environmental Protection Organization, told the Iranian Labor News Agency the oil had leaked for 10 to 15 hours, an astoundingly long time. Amir Sediqi, head of the Environmental Protection Department in the province, said an oil slick stretched 20 kilometers (12 miles) along the coastline and 8 kilometers (5 miles) out to sea.
There was an explosion November 28, 2010, at the Tamarchin border checkpoint hear Piranshahr in West Azerbaijan province. Nine tanker trucks that were being cleared through the border post caught fire. Three Iraqi drivers were killed. The governor of Piranshahr blamed the incident on the Iraqi drivers for leaving their trucks unattended and failing to observe safety and traffic rules. It wasn’t explained how the drivers were killed in the explosion if they had left their vehicles unattended.
An explosion October 21, 2010, destroyed the deck of an oil pipe storehouse in Khorramshahr. An announcement said one man was killed and two others injured. It blamed the blast on some ammunition that had been stored at the site during the 1980-88 war and never removed. No one has said why the ammunition was not removed in 22 years.
An immense explosion August 6, 2010, near Mashhad erupted as a bulldozer operator was trying to dig a trench for a new gas pipeline but hit an existing gas pipeline. The resulting ball of fire engulfed an area 600 meters, or more than a third of a mile, across. There were conflicting reports on deaths and injuries, but at least four workmen died that day. Some reports said the death toll later reached 10 because of serious injuries.
The 26 disruptions have not only been widely scattered physically but have involved gas, oil and petrochemicals.
The first in this chain of incidents occurred May 29, 2010, with an oil well blowout and fire in Kermanshah province. Firefighters needed nearly 40 days—an inordinate length of time by international standards—to extinguish the blaze, which killed three workers, injured a dozen more, and sent balls of flame into the air. At its height, that fire was consuming 8,000 barrels of oil a day.