A fire broke out at a complex owned by Haldia Petrochemicals Limited (HPL) in Haldia, East Midnapore district, West Bengal. The blaze erupted at a naphtha pipeline on Tuesday afternoon, and it spread quickly to the Naphtha storage tank. HPL’s response team, as well as West Bengal’s fire tenders, rushed to the site to prevent the fire from spreading to other parts of the complex. The company said everyone had been evacuated from the site, and no casualties had been reported as of now.
HPL added that maintenance work was underway in the pipeline attached to the Naphtha plant. The company’s preliminary assessment suggests that an electric spark met residual chemicals and caused the blaze. It said that the fire would not dissipate until the naphtha inside the pipeline is completely burned.
HPL’s complex processes naphtha to produce linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP), and other chemicals. In 2019, an explosion at the site’s naphtha cracker injured 15 people.
