Just heard fragment on car coming back from vet--Norco Refinery just outside New Orleans has major fire. Don't know details. It's a Shell facility.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Answers

Not reported at Downstreamer's forum yet.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

A tank of 9.0 RVP conventional 87 octane gasoline was struck by lightning and caught fire Thursday at Orion's Norco, Louisiana, refinery, market sources said. One trader said he was not sure what the affected tank contained, but that the refinery was definitely hosting a fire. "There is a fire at the tank area," the trader said. "It was hit by lightning. We have a barge loading there and heard it from our barge broker who is watching it burn." Orion officials were not immediately available for comment. Orion is a 200,000 b/d operation.

http://www.platts.com/stories/oil2.html

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Thanks, Brent. Don't know who or what Orion is but it used to be a Shell facility. Guess they sold it. Thank goodness it was only a holding tank and not a vital part of the refining process.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

Hi OG,
This refinery is not the biggest one around, but has added some major new processes (equivalent to almost a rebuild i would say).. and is a now a fairly deep conversion facility running predominantly Venezuelan heavies i think..

I don't know the ownership, but sounds like the facility has gone through quite a bit of financial turmoil as per next link

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/spindle/coker/coker.html

Here's a link to the Orion site

http://www.orionrefining.com/facility_main.htm

cheers

brent

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001

I left New Orleans in 1987, had several clients among the law firms in One Shell Square, some of whom handled cases for and against Shell. I remember Shell Norco was notorious for refinery fires--or maybe it just seemed that way because the fires were so spectacular (as oil facility fires usually are). And maybe that's why Shell unloaded the facility too. Considering the large number of refineries in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes and in other parishes around New Orleans, there have been surprisingly few major accidents.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2001