MOSCOW (MRC) -- A fire broke out Wednesday following an explosion at the Lone Star NGL facility in Mont Belvieu, where a contractor struck an underground pipeline, reported Houston Chronicle with reference to officials' statement.
No injuries were reported. All facility workers had been accounted for, said Mont Belvieu city spokesman Brian Ligon.
The explosion sparked a large fire around 5 p.m. in the Lone Star NGL facility at 506 W. Winfree St. Firefighters were still working to suppress the flames as of 8 p.m. Wednesday night. The fire had dwindled significantly, and officials expected the fire to burn itself out overnight, according to a Facebook post from the city.
“MBFD and industrial units are continuing with suppression operations while the line bleeds out,” the city said. “We are very thankful that no plant employees or responders were injured during this incident or during the response.”
West Winfree Street and State Highway 146 remained closed late Wednesday.
Lone Star NGL is a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer LP, one of the largest natural gas infrastructure companies in the US Company spokeswoman Lisa Coleman told the Houston Chronicle that a contractor struck an underground pipeline at 4:45 p.m.
In addition to Mont Belvieu firefighters, the company’s own fire team responded to the incident. Coleman said there were no evacuations.
Energy Transfer and the Baytown Fire Department late Wednesday began conducting air monitoring. Results did not show any levels of concern, Coleman said.
“There will be an investigation into the cause of this incident,” Coleman said. “Updates will be provided as information becomes available.”
Ligon added that there was “no public threat” from the fire.
Fractionators separate raw mixed NGLs, also called Y-grade, into purity components: ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline. The US chemical industry relies predominantly on NGLs as a feedstock.
As MRC informed earlier, Enterprise Products was expected to restart its propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit in Mont Belvieu, Texas, from maintenance last week. This PDH unit has the capacity of 750,000 mt/y of propylene.
Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
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