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Two people died yesterday in an explosion at a refinery in the Belgian city of Antwerp, oil giant Total said. |
“We regret two fatalities,” said a statement from the company after ordering an immediate evacuation of affected parts in Europe’s third-largest refinery site.
As darkness fell just before 6pm (1700 GMT), the company said all workers on the site – which employs more than 3,000 staff directly plus sub-contractors – had been accounted for.
“The situation is now under control,” it said.
The French company made no mention of other workers being injured in the blast, although an initial confirmation of the explosion had spoken of one dead and two missing.
It released no information about the fatalities other than to say the victims were each employees of a sub-contractor.
Total said that its first concern was with the victims of the families.
The explosion occurred about three hours earlier on the premises of Total Raffinaderij in Antwerp, the company said.
It is Total’s biggest refinery, turning 17mn tonnes of crude oil each year into petrol, diesel and kerosene.
The site ships out tankers of refined oil products via the port of Antwerp, one of the world’s biggest.
After a rapid shutdown of operations, the statement said the explosion stemmed from a problem during maintenance on a steam-pipes system in a unit producing diesel.
Local daily Gazet van Antwerpen said a steam turbine had been causing problems for days, and that the sub-contractors were on site trying to repair it.
“There was neither a fire nor release of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere,” the Total statement said of fears there could be environmental damage.