By Erwin Seba
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Four people were killed and six wereinjured when a massive crane collapsed at LyondellBasell'sHouston refinery on Friday afternoon, a refinery executivesaid.
"It's a very sad day for us at the refinery," said JimRoecker, vice president of refining operations, during a newsconference outside the refinery's front gate.
All workers have now been accounted for, he said.
Witnesses near the refinery said several helicopterambulances were seen taking off from the plant in the firsthour after the crane collapsed at about 1:30 p.m. local time(7:30 p.m. British time).
The fatalities in Houston follow two recent deadlycollapses in New York. In May, two people were killed onManhattan's Upper East Side after a large crane fell anddamaged an apartment building. In March, seven were killedafter a crane crushed a residential building.
The crane collapse in Houston was the deadliest U.S. crudeoil refinery accident since a massive 2005 explosion at BP'sgiant refinery in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 workers andinjured 180 other people. Texas City is located 50 miles southof Houston.
Television footage of the collapsed crane at the Houstonrefinery showed it appeared to break off at the base, crushingtrucks and cracking asphalt.
Roecker declined to disclose the names of those killed andthe companies for which they worked, pending notification ofthe next of kin.
He said the crane was owned by Deep South Crane & Rigging,which is based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Those killed and injured worked for outside contractorspreparing an overhaul of crude distillation and coking units atLyondellBasell's 270,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery locatedalong the Houston Ship Channel.
The Houston refinery had been scheduled to begin aseven-week overhaul of a crude distillation unit and a cokingunit at the refinery in early July. Other ancillary units atthe plant were scheduled to be shut during the overhaul.
The refinery has two crude distillation units and twocoking units.
A crude distillation unit begins the refining process byturning crude oil into feedstock for further processing intofuels by specialized units at a refinery.
A coking unit strains the last motor fuel feedstocks fromgunky residual crude oil and turns the remainder into petroleumcoke.
LyondellBasell is a Netherlands-based chemical and refiningcompany with annual revenues of $45 billion (27.5 billionpounds) and 16,000 employees worldwide.
(Additional reporting by Anna Driver and Eileen O'Grady;Editing by David Gregorio)