By Erwin Seba
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Four people were killed and seven 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, LyondellBasell's vice president of refiningoperations, during a news conference outside the refinery'sfront gate.
All workers at the refinery have been accounted for,Roecker said.
Production at the 270,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery wasnot affected by the crane collapse, said refinery spokesmanDavid Roznowski.
The crane was being readied to work in the overhaul of acoking unit at the 270,000 barrel per day refinery when it
collapsed at about 1:30 p.m. local time (7:30 p.m. Britishtime), the company said.
In addition to the coking unit, a crude distillation unithad been shut at the refinery for a planned seven-weekoverhaul. The refinery has two coking units and two crudeunits.
Roznowski declined to discuss the refinery's current levelof production. He said it would be at least several days beforeLyondell could determine how the crane collapse would affectthe planned overhaul.
Roecker said the crane was operating, but was not liftinganything.
"It certainly is too early to tell what caused the issue,"he said.
The crane fell on a tent which KTRK-TV in Houston said wasused for worker meals.
The television station interviewed a man at a Houstonhospital who was identified as one of the injured workers.
"All I saw was our lunch tent was smashed," Michael Gabrieltold KTRK.
Roznowski said he could not confirm if the tent was usedfor meals, breaks or to stage equipment being used in theoverhaul.
The crane collapse in Houston was the deadliest U.S. crudeoil refinery accident since a 2005 explosion at BP's giantrefinery in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 workers and injured180 other people. Texas City is located 50 miles south ofHouston.
Following a two-year investigation of the BP blast, thefederal Chemical Safety Board recommended refiners not placeworkers in structures near process units incapable ofwithstanding catastrophic explosions.
All of the workers killed at BP Texas City were intemporary work trailers near the site of the explosion.
The fatalities in Houston follow two recent deadly cranecollapses 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.
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.
Deep South said in a statement it had few details about theaccident.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with our employees and theirloved ones," the company said.
Deep South is providing crane equipment to a number oflarge U.S. refinery projects, including expansions at theMotiva refinery in Port Arthur, Texas; the Marathon refinery atGaryville, Louisiana; and maintenance projects at Citgo'sCorpus Christi, Texas, refinery and the ExxonMobil refinery inJoliet, Illinois.
Those killed and those injured worked for outsidecontractors preparing a seven-week overhaul of one of twocoking units and one of two crude distillation units at therefinery located along the Houston Ship Channel, Lyondell said.The work began in early July.
A crude distillation unit does the initial refining ofcrude oil and a coker strains the last refinable material fromcrude oil.
LyondellBasell is a Netherlands-based chemical and refiningcompany with annual revenues of $45 billion and 16,000employees worldwide.
(Additional reporting by Anna Driver, Eileen O'Grady andBruce Nichols)
