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Formosa Petrochemicals Plant Fire May Have Polluted Fishery, Officials Say
A fire at Formosa Petrochemical Corp.’s residual processing unit this month may have polluted fisheries near the plant, local government officials said.
Dead clams and fish have been found in an area of about 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) since the July 25 accident, said Lai Chien-sheng, a section chief at the agriculture department of Yunlin county, where the plant is located. “We’re probing the cause of the deaths,” he said by phone today.
An oil leak triggered a blaze at Formosa Petrochemical’s No. 2 residual desulfurization unit at 7:58 p.m. on July 25, and the fire was put out almost two days later. Formosa Petrochemical, Taiwan’s only publicly traded oil refiner, will “take full responsibility” for residents’ financial losses caused by the accident, the company said in a July 26 statement.
“Emissions from the fire may be harmful but they weren’t toxic,” Lin Keh-yen, Formosa Petrochemical spokesman, said by phone from Taipei yesterday. “We don’t expect large-scale agricultural or fishery losses.”
Formosa Petrochemical had shut its 540,000 barrel-a-day Mailiao refinery for safety reasons after the fire. The company began the restart process yesterday, Lin said. Two-thirds of the refining capacity may be fully operationally in one to two weeks, he said.
“A tiny amount of toxic matter was detected by our monitoring system, though below the levels allowed by government standards,” Hsieh Yein-rui, director general of air quality protection at the Environmental Protection Administration, said in a public hearing in Taipei yesterday, without giving details. The fire wouldn’t produce toxic material as the fuel’s sulfur content was low, the company said in the statement on its website on July 26.
Dust From Fire
Dust caused by the fire polluted fisheries near the plant, Yunlin County Magistrate Su Chih-fen said in an interview in Taipei yesterday.
The blaze was the second accident at the refiner’s Mailiao complex this month. Formosa halted its No. 1 ethylene plant, which has an annual capacity of 700,000 metric tons, on July 7 after a fire.
“If economic or technological development severely damages the environment, the environment should take priority,” President Ma Ying-jeou said in a meeting with business leaders today, as broadcast on Formosa TV, a Taiwan television channel.
The refinery has three crude distillation units, each able to process 180,000 barrels a day by heating oil and separating it into products. Residual desulfurization units remove sulfur.
Shares Fall
The shares fell 1.5 percent to close at NT$74.40 in Taipei trading at 1:30 p.m. local time. The benchmark Taiex index of equities declined 0.5 percent.
More than 1,000 ducks were found dead in Mailiao July 27, Huang An-chin, an official at the Yunlin county’s Animal Disease Control Center, said by phone July 28. The center has taken samples for a test to determine the cause of the deaths, he said.
“Direct losses” from the fire are estimated at NT$500 million ($16 million), Formosa Petrochemical said. The Yunlin county government said July 27 it has decided to fine the company NT$3 million for the smoke produced by the fire.
The refiner operates three ethylene plants with a combined annual capacity of 2.935 million tons.
To contact the reporter on the story: Yu-huay Sun in Taipei at ysun7@bloomberg.net
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