Gas Explosion News

A gas explosion has taken place at the Volzhsky Ship Repair Yard in Russia’s Volgograd Region,  Tass reported quoting a source in the regional head office of the Russian Emergencies Ministry.The report said quoting unnamed sources said at least three had been killed and another two had suffered injuries. "we have fatalities and casualties," they said.According to the report sources in the regional disaster medicine center confirmed that three had been killed and another two had suffered injuries.The explosion occurred during the recycling of a barge though it did not cause fire. Fire fighters, rescue workers and doctors are working on the site.

Pipeline shut on Dec. 11; repair work could last several weeks. Deliveries of crude oil through the Forties pipeline in the North Sea are under force majeure for the first time in decades and operator INEOS said on Thursday there was no timeline yet for repair work that could last several weeks. The 169-km pipeline, which carries around a quarter of all North Sea crude output and around a third of Britain's total offshore gas production, has been closed since Monday, following the discovery of a small crack in part of the system onshore in Scotland. Force majeure, which suspends a company's contractual obligations in the wake of situations that lie beyond its control, is common in oil-producing nations like Nigeria where unrest often disrupts output, but very rare in the North Sea.

Ignoring industry leaders and human rights and environmental organizations, ship owners continue to profit from dangerous and dirty shipbreaking practices on South Asian beaches in 2015, according to new data released today by the NGO Shipbreaking Platform. Of the 768 large oceangoing vessels sold to the scrap yards last year, 469 were broken on the beaches of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where shipbreaking yards often do not provide fundamental labor rights, ignore international waste trade law and fail to respect international environmental protection standards. One of many accidents that killed or maimed shipbreaking workers last year was a major gas explosion at Shitol Enterprise, a shipbreaking yard in Bangladesh.

Cost-cutting in Britain's North Sea oil and gas sector could lead to more acute skills shortages in future, industry experts have warned, with some expressing concerns that safety could be compromised. A plunge in crude prices over the last 12 months has prompted oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP , Chevron and ConocoPhillips to lay off hundreds of workers. Oil field services groups such as Amec Foster Wheeler , Wood Group and Petrofac are also in consultation with employees over job cuts.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will meet June 9 to discuss the vessel collision that took place in the Houston ship channel March 22, 2014. The NTSB meeting will aim to determine the probable cause of the “Texas Y” collision, which involved the bulk carrier MV Summer Wind, and the MV Miss Susan, a tow pushing two barges. As a result of the collision, a barge was breached releasing 168,000 gallons of fuel in the water. Two crew members were treated for inhalation-related injuries.

In the first issue its 'Perspectives' online magazine DNV GL’s Graham Bennett points out that the Macondo incident has cast a spotlight on well control standards and the need for more consistency in training. Offshore oil and gas activities are not, by nature, inherently safe. They involve handling large amounts of pressurised hydrocarbons and other produced fluids and gases. The industry has been improving its process safety performance ever since the Piper Alpha platform incident, in which 167 men died in 1988, but it still has far to go in effectively managing major hazard risks. Many elements behind the fire, fatalities and massive oil spill from the Macondo field in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 had been seen before.

Multiple sources reported that a natural gas explosion at Huarun Dadong Dockyard Co. Ltd.'s shipbuilding facility in Chongming County left two workers dead and another two in critical condition Monday morning.   According to the Shanghai Administration of Work Safety, the blast was likely caused by a gas leak that occurred while workers were performing cutting operations during the construction of a ship.   A deeper investigation into the cause of the accident is being conducted.

According to Thanh Nien Daily, one person died and four were seriously burned including a South Korean man in a gas explosion at the Hyundai-Vinashin Shipyard in central Vietnam’s Khanh Hoa province. A worker accidentally opened a gas pipe valve in the hold of a ship that was being built, setting off the explosion in which he and two other Vietnamese workers were injured. After they were hospitalized, South Korean national Seo Son Ha, head of the shipyard’s staff health section, and his colleague Duong Ngoc Toan, 43, went down the hold to check. Gas exploded again, killing Toan and seriously injuring Seo. Source: Thanh Nien Daily

Danish oil and shipping conglomerate A.P. Moeller hopes to resume some of its 120,000 bpd North Sea oil production, which was halted 11 days ago due to a gas explosion, the Danish Energy Agency said on Thursday. "There are considerations about resuming some of the production this weekend. We are thinking about it and will meet with Maersk on Friday," an agency spokesman said. The gas explosion occurred on May 20 on the Gorm Field, where production was halted immediately as well as on its four satellite fields Halfdan, Skjold, Rolf and Dagmar. In all, the five fields produced 120,700 bpd in April or 40 percent of Danish Underground Consortium`s (DUC) total production of 302,200 bpd.

A.P. Moeller fell around four percent on Thursday as news of a production halt and talk of higher tax continued to scare away investors, brokers said. Furthermore, share prices were still under pressure after Morgan Stanley's announcement in May that Moeller`s weighting would be reduced in its coming Morgan Stanley Denmark index. An ongoing debate about the possibility of higher tax was hurting shares. The Danish government is considering raising taxes on North Sea oil production. In addition, the company halted 40 percent of its North Sea due to a gas explosion in late May. Last week it said full production would not resume for several months. - (Reuters)