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Investigations of Philadelphia refinery fire to include potential release of dangerous chemical

Investigators from the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board who are investigating Friday’s refinery fire in South Philadelphia say their report will include recommendations aimed at preventing future incidents. Kristen Kulinowski, interim executive of the independent agency, said staff will be interviewing people involved and poring over documents to present a “detailed and fact-based report” of the fire at Philadelphia Energy Solutions. Kulinowski said those recommendations could be aimed at the company or regulators. “Wherever we see a gap that could have contributed to the incident or exacerbated the consequences of that incident we try to close that gap with a recommendation,” she said. The explosion and fire took a day and a half to extinguish and destroyed the alkylation unit that turned crude oil into gasoline. The former Sunoco refinery includes two facilities, Point Breeze and Girard Point, which together had the combined capacity of processing 335,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
Four employees were injured in the accident, so the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is also investigating. Many say the impact could have been far worse. That’s because the unit that blew up used the dangerous chemical hydrogen fluoride, often referred to as HF. Kulinowski said the Chemical Safety Board has investigated incidents involving refineries’ use of hydrogen fluoride in the past, and will be doing so in this case as well.

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