May 15, 2001 — An explosion and fire rocked the Hovensa refinery Tuesday afternoon, sending one worker to the hospital with burn injuries and a plume of dark smoke into the sky.
At approximately 3 p.m., an explosion followed by a fire engulfed the No. 4 platformer, a processing unit near the refinery’s fluidized catalytic cracking unit, or "cat cracker," according to Alex Moorhead, a Hovensa vice president. The fire in the east side of the refinery was controlled in 20 minutes and contained to the processing unit, Moorhead said.
One person suffered burns in the incident and was transferred to nearby Juan F. Luis Hospital. The severity of the worker’s injuries was unknown by early evening. Initial reports from workers leaving the refinery — later discounted — were of more than a dozen people injured.
Once word of the fire spread across the island, worried family members and workers arriving to start their shift milled around one of the refinery gates in Castle Coakley. Police also had road blocks up at intersections in the vicinity of the refinery.
Moorhead said refinery officials didn’t immediately have information as to the cause of the fire or the extent of damages.
"We have to wait for it to cool off and do a survey," he said.
Normal operations in other areas of the sprawling facility were reportedly ongoing during and after the fire, which was doused by the Hovensa fire brigade. It was not clear whether the fire might cause the refinery to restrict production.
The St. Croix refinery, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, employs approximately 950 people, while its contractors employ more than 1,000. The refinery currently produces about 400,000 barrels of oil a day, with the capacity to pump out 500,000 barrels a day.
The refinery's cat cracker produces high-octane components needed for the production of premium gasoline.
Hovensa is equally owned through a joint venture by Amerada Hess Corp. and Petroleos de Venezuela SA. The joint venture was formed in order to obtain $600 million in financing for the construction of a 58,000-barrel-per-day delayed coking unit and related facilities, and to repay existing bank debt.
The coker will enable the refinery to process heavier Venezuelan crude oil, for which Hovensa has a long-term supply contract with Petroleos de Venezuela. Without the coker, Hovensa is forced to process crude oil that is more expensive than what competitors process.
The refinery is basically targeted toward yielding diesel oil and gasoline, products that meet strict quality specifications demanded by the United States. Its geographic location offers it a competitive advantage as direct supplier to the U.S. East Coast and to markets throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.
