Reuters/Rio de Janeiro


Three workers were seriously hurt in an explosion on Sunday at Petrobras’ 323,000-barrel-a-day Landulpho Alves Refinery (RLAM) outside Salvador, Brazil, the second serious accident at the country’s second-largest refinery in a week.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as state-run Petrobras is formally known, said in a statement yesterday that the workers were injured during maintenance services at the refinery’s U-35 topping unit. They suffered between 10% and 75% burns and are being treated at a hospital.
Petrobras declined to say if oil processing or fuel output at the plant was affected by the accident. The company said the accident will not affect fuel supplies to Brazilian consumers.
The accident revives safety concerns at Petrobras’ 14 Brazilian refineries which have been operating near full capacity to meet domestic demand that has grown faster than its ability to supply it.
While a nearly 50% drop in crude prices since June means that Petrobras is no longer losing money on gasoline and diesel imports, the company may still not be able to shut units and perform upgrades, union officials said.
A recent price-fixing, bribery and political kickback scandal has cut Petrobras out of capital markets and led the company to stop paying for or working with some of the country’s most important construction and engineering firms. Many of those firms are the same ones which build, expand and repair Petrobras  refineries.
“Thousands of contract workers at the refineries are being laid off and work is shutting down,” said Simao Zanardi, head of legal and institutional affairs for FUP, Brazil’s national oil workers’ federation.
“It is our feeling that most of Petrobras’ refineries are not operating as safely as they should be.”


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