Shell refinery fire: 'The fire looked like a tornado'

SCDF firefighters recount battle with 32-hour Shell blaze
Jennani Durai Straits Times 6 Oct 11;

HE WAS so close, he could feel the heat searing his skin through layers of protective gear.

One of the first firefighters on the ground at the blaze in Shell's refinery on Pulau Bukom recalled yesterday how his team fought the biggest fire of his career - a 'complex, multi-dimensional fire' that kept threatening to run out of control.

Twice, he was thrown metres backwards by the impact of the surging flames, said Colonel Anwar Abdullah, 46, the Singapore Civil Defence Force's (SCDF) director of operations.

The fire started at 1.15pm on Sept 28 and raged for 32 hours. It surged twice - once at 6.35pm that Wednesday, and again at 11.45am last Thursday.

'When the fire escalated the second time, it was sudden - it happened within 10 seconds, and it looked like a tornado,' recounted Col Anwar. 'That was the scariest moment for me.'

The colonel, who has been with the SCDF for 18 years, pointed at the scars on his face and hand: 'I got burned on my lip and finger.'

He was speaking at a press conference held in a mobile command centre at Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal yesterday with Lieutenant-Colonel Ling Young Ern, 35, who heads the operations branch in the 1st Civil Defence Division.

Pulau Bukom comes under the purview of the division, and Lt-Col Ling happened to be covering for the division commander, who was on an overseas assignment when the fire broke out last week.

Both men were among the team that rushed to Pulau Bukom within half an hour of being activated. When they arrived, 40 of Shell's own in-house firefighters had already begun foaming operations, said Lt-Col Ling. This involves applying a 'blanket' of foam over the fire to starve it of oxygen.

The fire started in an open area within the refinery comprising pumps, valves and pipelines for fuel distribution. The 176m by 65m area is known as Pump House 43. The first pipes on fire contained lighter fuels such as gasoline.

Right away, the SCDF was told by Shell to protect two nearby tanks in particular, at all costs. They were not told what these tanks contained. Responding to queries from The Straits Times, Shell would only say they contained 'hydrocarbons for use in a refinery', but declined to be more specific.

The firefighters started using water jets to create 'curtains' around the tanks, to cool them and to prevent pressure from building up. 'When we arrived, the surfaces of the tanks were already blackened,' recalled Col Anwar.

Lt-Col Ling added that the wind was blowing in their favour when they arrived on the scene. 'It was very fortunate that the wind was blowing away from the tanks, taking all the heat and smoke in the other direction,' he said.

The firefighting operations proceeded uneventfully at first, with Shell even announcing at 5.15pm that the fire had been contained - until a sudden surge just an hour later. They realised then that this was no ordinary fire, said Col Anwar.

Underneath the foam blanket, the fire had spread under the network of criss-crossing, interconnecting pipes, which were stacked as high as 1.5m above ground in some places.

'The unique characteristic of this instance was that the area on fire was a myriad of pipes of different sizes and complexity,' he said. As the fire spread further, more pipes became damaged and began leaking, feeding the fire further.

That was when Col Anwar decided to withdraw his men to a safer location.

'The fire was threatening to run out of control,' he said. 'We pulled people out in the nick of time before the fire really flared.'

The firefighters regrouped before going back cautiously with a new plan that involved repositioning certain water jets. Shell also began evacuating its non-essential employees.

More men and firefighting vehicles arrived throughout the day, and more than 100 firefighters with 13 vehicles were trying to quench the flames by nightfall.

They battled the fire throughout the night, and had whittled it down sizeably by morning - before the second surge that sent Col Anwar flying backwards.

'We heard a high-pitched, wheezing sound before the fire suddenly escalated,' he said. 'But the second time, we pulled people back even faster, because we knew not to take it lightly at the first signs of escalation.'

Lt-Col Ling recounted feeling the heat from the surge toasting his back even as he ran away from the fire.

'I could feel my back heating up even through my personal protective equipment, and the faster I ran, the hotter it felt,' he said. 'The radiant heat was catching up with me. It was that close.'

The firefighters were clad in protective equipment that can withstand heat of up to 400 deg C. While they regrouped at a safer distance, Lt-Col Ling became nervous as not everyone was accounted for at first.

'We had problems reaching some men,' he said. 'I got really worried when we were calling them over the radio and they didn't respond. We didn't know if they were okay or not after the surge.'

All the men emerged unscathed, but their vehicles were not as lucky. The heat from the fire damaged four vehicles and melted tires off their rims, said Lt-Col Ling. 'Thankfully, none of our men was in the vehicles. They were all manning the water jets around the pump house.'

It was after the second surge that the firefighters discovered that liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG, was leaking from ruptured pipes - and was also on fire.

This changed the firefighting team's strategy completely.

'An LPG fire is a three-dimensional fire, and you cannot use foam,' said Col Anwar. 'We had to do cooling to prevent an explosion.'

While firefighters kept fighting the fire at its origin with foam as well as water, they switched to using only water where they suspected LPG was burning.

More firefighting vehicles were deployed, and 23 water jets were used to try to subdue the LPG fire. Seawater was continuously pumped into the jets.

The SCDF had pulled out all the stops, but the team was starting to wonder when the fire would end. 'What worried me the most was that it kept escalating,' said Col Anwar. 'I had never encountered fire of such a magnitude before.'

Two water jets were added to the firefighting efforts, just as SCDF held a joint press conference with Shell to tell the media that the fire was still raging, and its cause was still undiscovered.

Within two hours of that press conference, the fire had been put out.

The firefighters were slow to celebrate, however. 'When the fire died out, we were still very cautious,' said Lt-Col Ling. 'We had earlier brought it under control twice, and it had surged again. So we were not taking any chances.'

He went home at 2am, five hours after the flames had disappeared. 'It was looking promising, but I was still keeping my fingers crossed,' he said.

When he returned three hours later, the fire was still out, and the team started allowing itself to feel more hopeful. But it was not until late on Friday evening that the team began to feel relief set in at last.

'By then, we were certain that the supply lines had been cut off, and there was nothing feeding into the pump house anymore,' said Lt-Col Ling.

The SCDF kept about 100 firefighters on the island as a precaution until Sunday, when it began progressively withdrawing its resources and personnel. They had all left by last night.

Both Col Anwar and Lt-Col Ling were full of praise for the firefighters who had worked 24-hour shifts in their efforts to control the fire. They included several national servicemen on the front line.

Lt-Col Ling said: 'They were very brave, and they worked tirelessly.'

The mood among the firefighters after they were certain the fire was out was generally one of excitement, he added.

'For many of us, it was the biggest fire we had ever seen,' said Lt-Col Ling, who has been with the SCDF for 10 years. 'It was an eye-opener for many of the firemen, an exciting experience that they lived to tell the tale of.

'During the operation itself, you are only focusing on putting the fire out, and the adrenaline rush enables you to go on. It is only when it is all over that you feel tired, and you realise how dangerous it actually was.'

Background story: TIMELINE

SEPT 28

1.18pm: The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) heads to the Pulau Bukom refinery, where a fire had broken out minutes earlier.

1.27pm: SCDF officers arrive at the Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal and start loading their fire-fighting resources onto a barge bound for the island, located about 5km away from the mainland.

1.53pm: The SCDF arrives at Pulau Bukom, where fire fighters from Shell are using foam to combat the blaze at a pump house.

5.15pm: A Shell spokesman announces that the fire has been contained.

6.35pm: The fire suddenly surges and escalates into a larger inferno, forcing fire fighters out of the area.

6.50pm: The SCDF sets up a Forward Operations Centre at the Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal as it prepares to deploy more resources to Pulau Bukom.

8.30pm: Evacuation of all non-essential staff from Shell is completed.

SEPT 29

8am: Fresh fire fighters arrive to relieve those on the ground since the fire broke out.

11.45am: The fire surges again, this time engulfing an area of the pump house containing liquefied petroleum gas and forcing SCDF officers to regroup away from the area of operations.

A Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) signals vehicle arrives in the mid-afternoon at the Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal to support the police and SCDF. SAF troops are on stand-by.

2.40pm: Fire fighters bring the blaze under control.

7pm: A press conference is held. Shell executives say the company has started a progressive shutdown of the whole refinery, a process that will take at least two days.

SEPT 30

The Ministry of Manpower steps in to investigate the cause of the fire.

OCT 1

The progressive shutdown of the refinery continues.

OCT 2

8am: The SCDF hands over the management of the site to Shell.

9am: The withdrawal of SCDF resources and personnel begins.

OCT 3

The Manpower Ministry says its preliminary investigations find that the fire was caused by preparation work for maintenance, part of which involved draining residual oil in a pipeline.

OCT 4

The withdrawal of SCDF resources and personnel continues as the situation at the refinery stabilises.

OCT 5

9.50pm: The SCDF withdraws all remaining resources and personnel from Pulau Bukom.


Bukom fire provides valuable learning points
Ronnie Lim Business Times 6 Oct 11;

(SINGAPORE) The chain effects of the Pulau Bukom fire - with the Shell refinery shutdown disrupting supplies of naphtha feedstock to its own ethylene cracker and to the Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore's (PCS) cracker on Jurong Island, and with this in turn impacting feedstock supplies to other downstream plants there - have raised some critical issues for Singapore's petrochemical industry.

While the integrated structure of plants on Jurong Island - with one facility feeding the next, and so forth down the line - has its advantages, including operating efficiencies and economies which have attracted many international investors here, the Bukom incident has also exposed inherent weaknesses in such a system.

More critically, it underlines the need for the industry to consider viable, alternative feedstocks for the petrochemical crackers that fuel entire chains of downstream customers. And here, LPG, or liquefied petroleum gas, is one of the more immediate possibilities.

In the last year and a half, the Economic Development Board together with industry players such as Shell, ExxonMobil, PCS and Singapore LNG (SLNG) have been mulling over building an LPG import terminal to do exactly that.

The plan was first mooted in late-2009, when Qatar Petroleum International bought a stake in PCS, with this raising the possibility of the gas-rich Gulf state supplying Singapore with LPG. The gas is an alternative feedstock which most petrochemical crackers can make use of to meet as much as one-fifth of their fuel requirements.

Given the limited land available on Jurong Island for an LPG terminal, this grew into an industry-wide plan, with SLNG, which is building a S$1.7 billion liquefied natural gas terminal there, also offering some space at its site for the LPG import facility.

Asked for a project update yesterday, EDB's director for energy and chemicals Liang Ting Wee told BT that discussions are still on-going regarding the LPG terminal project. 'We are still aiming for clarity on next steps by end of the year,' he said.

An industry source feels that the Bukom fire has definitely raised the issue of risks for an industry reliant on just a single feedstock, naphtha. On the other hand, when considering LPG as an additional, alternative feedstock, there is also the issue of cost and pricing.

It raises questions like 'how, and whether, the industry is prepared to pay for the LPG, which will be used more to meet intermittent demand, rather than current naphtha supplies which meets a constant demand', the source said.

The bottom line 'is going to be the economic model for the LPG terminal, including how, and who, is to implement the project, and also in ensuring enough (LPG) demand to enable the crackers to have the ability to switch feedstocks'.

'While until now, there has been insufficient demand to underwrite the LPG terminal, the Bukom fire may just provide the impetus for the project,' the source said.

Longer-term, EDB has also started studying using 'green' materials like palm oil, sugarcane and plant biomass as an additional strategic feedstock for the chemical plants on the island. Another possibility is coal-to-chemicals, with a coal gasification project on Jurong Island to provide syngas feedstocks to the chemical and utility plants there.

Already, Germany's Lanxess - whose synthetic rubber plant is sourcing feedstocks such as raffinate 1 and isobutene from Shell when it starts up in 2013 - is working with US biomass company Gevo on producing some alternative biomass-based isobutene feedstock as well.

The Bukom fire, if nothing else, will provide valuable learning points and inputs for the Jurong Island version 2.0 initiative - a soon-to-be-unveiled strategic plan to boost the petrochemical industry's competitiveness through the coming decade.

SCDF leaves Pulau Bukom
Joanne Chan Channel NewsAsia 5 Oct 11;

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) has withdrawn all its personnel and resources from Pulau Bukom.

In a statement issued on Wednesday evening, SCDF said its assistance-and-support operations are no longer required there.

SCDF personnel returned to the mainland at 9.50pm Wednesday.

SCDF personnel were sent to the island following a fire at the Shell refinery a week ago.

Investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.

Preliminary findings released on Monday showed the fire took place during preparation work for maintenance.

The Ministry of Manpower said in a statement that part of the preparation work involved the draining of residual oil in a pipeline and removing it by means of a suction truck.

-CNA/wk