Explosion of Oil Tank Buoyancy Modules in Maoming Petrochemical Corporation.

7 dead and 5 injured

At 11:10 on Oct. 18, 1998, No. 127 crude oil tank in Beishan crude oil tank farm of the oil transmission workshop in the refinery of Maoming Petrochemical Corporation suddenly exploded. The blast happened when the construction team of Huazhou Ronghua Chemical Industrial Co., Ltd. was painting buoyancy modules. There were 12 casualties including 7 dead and 5 injured, one of them seriously injured.

No.127 tank is an external floating roof oil tank with a capacity of 50 000 m and having 32 buoyancy modules around the open pan. The tank was being overhauled at that time. Ronghua Chemical Industrial Co., Ltd. is a township and village enterprise in Huazhou (at the county level) of Maoming City. The construction team was in charge of applying primer paint to the tank after mechanical rust removal.

The preliminary analysis to the cause of the accident shows that the mixed solvent of toluene and xylene in the primer paint newly applied to the inside of the buoyancy modules evaporated and mixed with air into an explosive gas. The igniting source was a non explosion-proof 36 V portable lighter.