Explosion at Co-op Upgrader in Regina

Dec 25, 2013 | 2:17 AM

At 3:28 P.M. on Tuesday there was an explosion at the Co-op Refinery Complex, also known at the upgrader. The explosion could be felt all the way to downtown Regina.

“I though someone had hit our house, that’s how hard the explosion was,” said Brenda McLeish. She lives in Glencairn, just a five minute drive from the refinery complex. “You physically could feel the shaking and everyone’s running into the streets and going, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on,’ so it’s a complete different thing from the last one.”

Massive plumes of black smoke and a tower of flame was reported as well.

Within an hour of the incident Regina’s deputy fire chief revealed that all the employees working Tuesday had been accounted for and there appeared to be no injuries.

“That’s quite amazing, given that it was an explosion and a significant one,” Regina Fire and Protective Services’ Layne Jackson commented later on.

Roads around the complex were closed and were expected to remain that way for some time, as the Regina Police Service asked people to stay away from the area.

Eventually Federated Co-Op representative Dan McMurty, who felt the blast in his east end home, updated the media. He explained that the first step was to make sure all the employees were safe. He confirmed that the early evidence showed that the blast originated in a liquified petroleum gas processor.

“Part of the reason for the nature of the explosion was it was propane and butane processing unit. So think of propane and butane as light fuel and highly explosive.”

McMurty acknowledged that the perception of the plant’s safety record has taken a hit in recent years. After going more than a decade without incident there has now been four fires, including two explosions, in just over two years.

“I’ll tell you, one is one too many and we’ve had a number. It’s a serious concern for us at this point in time.

“I don’t know that there’s ever a good time for an incident like this,” he admitted, adding, “It’s just a situation we’re going to have to deal with.”

The fire department’s Jackson confirmed that municipal fire crews had no hand in fighting the fire; that was left up to refinery response crews. He notes that their involvement will begin soon as investigators try to pin down exactly what went wrong and how it might be prevented in the future. In the past that process has taken several months.

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