Houston refinery crane collapse kills 4

by amyjudd | July 18, 2008 at 01:47 pm | 676 views | 3 comments

Crane Collapse and kills 4 workers at a houston chemical plant

Crane Collapses at Houston Refinery, Killing 4

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UPDATE: 9:42PM EST

Seven people were injured in the collapse, but it is still not known what caused it.

The owner of the crane, Deep South Crane & Rigging, says it's already investigating. It's hoped that video cameras around the plant might give some idea what went wrong.

Three of the seven people hurt in the collapse were treated and released at the scene, but the other four are hospitalized.

The crane involved was one of the biggest mobile cranes in the country, standing 300 feet tall with a 400-foot beam. It was assembled in the past month and wasn't scheduled for any work until next week. An expert says it's unusual for such cranes to fail because of the number of people involved in maintenance.

PREVIOUSLY

In yet another crane collapse this year, a giant crane at LyondellBassell's Houston refinery collapsed today and killed four people, while injuring as many as five more.

Witnesses near the refinery said several helicopter ambulances were seen taking off from the plant located along the Houston Ship Channel.

A refinery spokesman confirmed the massive crane being used in an overhaul of crude distillation and coking units at LyondellBasell's 270,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Houston fell at about 1:30 p.m. local time (1830 GMT).

The spokesman did not immediately have details available about injuries or damage at the refinery.

KRTK-TV in Houston said the crane boom appeared to snap off its base.

The Houston refinery had been scheduled to begin a seven-week overhaul of a crude distillation unit and coking unit at the refinery in early July. Other ancillary units at the plant were scheduled to be shut during the overhaul.

LyondellBasell is a Netherlands-based chemical and refining company with annual revenues of $45 billion and 16,000 employees worldwide.

A crude distillation unit begins the refining process by turning crude oil into feedstock for further processing into fuels by specialized units at a refinery.

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Rhonda J Mangus

at 15:21 on July 18th, 2008

good stuff:

amyjudd, I like this story. It's good stuff.

mchawk

at 09:54 on July 19th, 2008

good stuff:

amyjudd, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Mr Roecker, LyondellBasell's vice-president for refining, said the Texas crane, which was capable of lifting hundreds of tonnes, had been delivered in pieces and assembled on site about one month ago.

"It's going to be quite some time before we know exactly what happened that caused the failure of this large piece of equipment," he said.

"It is certainly much too early to tell what caused the issue. But right now our focus is on those employees and their families who have been significantly impacted by this unfortunate event."

The company that owns the crane, Deep South, said it would investigate the accident "to determine the root cause, correct it and ensure that this type of tragedy does not occur again".