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Date Published: 19/11/2021
ARCHIVED - Tragedy averted at Repsol loading bay as oil fire quickly extinguished
The fire at the oil giant’s waterfront fuel bay in Cartagena was contained this time, but it could have been disastrous
A fire that started at a Repsol fuel bay in Escombreras was thankfully brought under control swiftly, averting a potentially horrendous disaster.
The rapid intervention of firefighting services belonging to both oil giant Repsol and to Cartagena City Council meant that the fire that started at midday on Wednesday November 17 in the hydrocarbon area of the port did not spread.
A few minutes after 2pm, the alarm was raised when the fire started in some pipes in the liquid bulk terminal of Escombreras while one of the fuel filters was being cleaned. The flames caused a huge column of smoke, which could be seen from various different parts of Cartagena.
As well as firefighters from the Repsol industrial complex, two tugboats from the Port Authorities used strong water cannons to douse the fire from the sea. The fire was controlled within twenty minutes and it was not necessary to activate the external emergency plan for the Escombreras Valley.
In the absence of an exhaustive investigation to determine the causes of the accident, the first hypothesis is that it could have been due to a fault in the cleaning work, which was being carried out by workers from Repsol at the time.
Dangerous oil facility?
The Escombreras area is used by the multinational oil company for unloading and loading products leaving its refinery. According to company sources, it was only “an outbreak of fire”, which did not require the activation of Repsol’s Internal Emergency Plan or the External Emergency Plan for the Chemical Sector of the Escombreras Valley.
While Repsol downplayed the event, it’s clear that if there were to be a serious fire in the facility it would be an environmental and health and safety catastrophe for Cartagena. Hopefully, a full and extensive investigation will be launched to find out how the fire came about in the first place, and what can be done to stop further incidents in the future.
Image: Wikimedia commons
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