Two maintenance workers were refitting the valves on a compressor in the gas compression building in the hydrocracker unit at 3:20 p.m. MT when the explosion occurred, said Ron Bailey, senior vice-president of Nexen’s Canadian operations. “Regulators have been notified”, Nexen said in the statement.
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“Our motto at CNOOC is that there is nothing so important that it can not be done safely”. One worker died at the site about 75 kilometres south of Fort McMurray and a second worker, in critical condition, was flown to the University of Alberta’s burn centre.
The names of the victims have not been disclosed.
“Our emergency response plan has been activated and response personnel, including first responders from the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, are on site”, the company said. The process of shutting down the facility began Friday.
The AER as well as provincial Occupational Health and Safety officials are on site. Bailey said an internal investigation is already underway.
Before the accident, Long Lake was producing 50,000 about barrels of crude oil per day, according to company representatives, compared to its stated capacity of 72,000 bpd bitumen production. The AER is still investigating the rupture of the pipeline that was less than a year old.
Last August, Alberta’s Energy Regulator suspended 95 pipelines operated by at the Long Lake site after a pipeline owned by the company spilled five million litres of water, sand and bitumen nearby.
The suspension order was lifted in September and the plant returned to full operations. RCMP said early indications were that the blast happened in a hydrocracker, which combines hydrogen with partially upgraded oil to remove sulphur.
She said a “stop work” order was in place for the facility until it is deemed safe to start operating again but could not speculate on how long that would take.
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Bailey said the explosion happened in a part of the plant that was not involved in the leak.
