UPDATE> Chemical plant burns in Mont Belvieu

Exxon Mobil Corp's (XOM.N) Baytown, Texas, petrochemical complex has sustained only minimal impact from Tuesday's fire at the nearby Enterprise Products Partners (EPD.N) Mont Belvieu, Texas, natural gas liquids and petrochemical complex, a spokesman said.

"Our Baytown Complex - which includes both refinery and the various chemical facilities - is operational and all units are running with minimal impacts," said Exxon spokesman Kevin Allexon. "We continue to closely monitor and assess the situation."

Exxon's Baytown refinery is the largest in the United States at 560,640 barrels per day (bpd). Adjoining the refinery are a chemical plant and an olefins plant.

The Enterprise Products Mont Belvieu complex includes plants for processing natural gas liquids into chemicals, some which increase octane in gasoline.

A massive fire broke out early on Tuesday afternoon at a natural gas liquids storage area of the complex. Main production facilities were not affected by the blast, an Enterprise spokesman said on Tuesday.

One worker remained unaccounted for following the fire. There were no injuries reported due to the blast and ensuing fire, which was visible in Houston, 35 miles (56 min) west.

Rick Rainey, public relations director for Enterprise Products, said there are normally eight to 10 workers in the facility located 35 miles east of Houston. All the workers got out safely, he said.

"As of right now our main concern is to make sure that we get this thing contained," Rainey said.
Hours after the explosion, the plant, which processes and stores liquids that are separated from natural gas, continues to burn. Nothing that is burning is toxic, Rainey said.
Pipelines to the plant were shut down so no new flows come into the facility. But the liquids in the pipe are continuing to burn.

Rainey said the pipelines weren’t near capacity so the fire won’t burn as long as it might have at full capacity.

There are no plans to try to extinguish the fire. Instead, the plan is to focus on letting it burn and cooling the area around it.

One nearby school has been evacuated. The main area of the plant where most of the equipment was located has not been affected by the explosion and blaze.

The facility in Chambers County is a natural gas fractionation facility, where natural gas liquids are separated into different components before being put into storage or injected into pipelines. It has a capacity of about 305,000 barrels of natural gas liquids per day. Recently, it has become an important hub to oil and gas producers in South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale formation, where large quantities of natural gas liquids are being extracted and processed for usage by Gulf Coast petrochemical plants and other customers.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said the plant had recorded no major permit violations over the past five years.

A preliminary search of Occupational Safety and Health Administration data does not find any incidents reported on this Enterprise facility. In June 2005 a worker was killed at an Enterprise facility in Mirando City in South Texas near Nuevo Laredo when there was an unexpected release of pressurized flammable material from a production compressor.

Houston-based Enterprise is one of the country's largest shippers and processors of natural gas in, including 49,100 miles of onshore and offshore pipelines.