ExxonMobil Torrance Refinery FCC ESP Explosion

On February 18, 2015, an explosion occurred in the electrostatic precipitator (ESP) at the ExxonMobil Refinery in Torrance, California near Los Angeles. The explosion injured four workers caused significant property damage to multiple process units within the refinery, and resulted in an off-site accidental release of catalyst dust. As a result of the incident, the FCC unit was down for over one year. The explosion occurred when hydrocarbons from the FCC unit reached the energized ESP while the unit was idling to perform maintenance on equipment that had failed. Multiple failures contributed to the incident. During the ESP explosion, there was also a near miss release of hydrofluoric acid when a large piece of ESP debris fell within feet of a storage vessel storing thousands of gallons of modified hydrofluoric acid in the neighboring alkylation unit. If the storage vessel had failed due to impact from ESP debris following the explosion, hydrofluoric acid would have been released. This presentation will detail key findings from the CSB investigation into the incident.