NEW DELHI, June 30 (Reuters) – A fire at India’s Haldia Petrochemicals plant has injured several people, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
The company said operations are not affected so far by the fire, which happened at a place where naphtha – a volatile, highly flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture produced during refining – has been stolen from in the past.
Earlier, local media had reported a massive fire in the refinery, located in India’s eastern state of West Bengal in the early hours of Tuesday, with visuals showing smoke and fire billowing out of the area.
• “Preliminary information suggests that the incident may have occurred in the vicinity of a naphtha theft point,” Haldia Petrochemicals said in a statement.
• “We are aware of an incident that occurred at our Haldia facility, in which a few people have reportedly sustained injuries,” the statement said.
• HPL said the exact cause of the incident is under investigation and said it had cautioned local communities against unauthorised access to petroleum products.
• Several of the injured had been moved to hospitals, local media said.
• The company operates a 700,000 ton-per-year ethylene cracker in the eastern state of West Bengal. The company is majority owned by U.S.-based private equity firm The Chatterjee Group (TCG).
(Reporting by Mohi Narayan in New Delhi and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
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