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Valero (26003), Norco

LDEQ Accident Report

Accident #96074
State Police #07-02375
Accident Date2007-05-09
Report Date 2007-05-16
Follow-up Date 0000-00-00
Follow-up: Yes

Pollutants Released

Pollutant Duration Point Source Greenhouse Gas Criteria Pollutant Ozone forming chemical Amount of Release
Sulfur DioxideNo information given.Thermal Oxidizer (TOX) #1, Flares #1 and #2NOYESNOBRQ

Accident Classified As:

Cause of Problem: Equipment Failure

On May 9, 2007, Valero shut down its NHT and continuous catalytic reformer (CCR) for repair. While shutting down the units, an additional unit (diesel hydrotreater (HDT)) had to be shut down as well due to lack of hydrogen supply from their third party hydrogen supplier. Thus, they had to shut down their sulfur recovery unit 3700 (SRU) due to insufficient sulfur feed from DHT. When the SRU was down, they kept the reactor hot using hot air sweep, which released SO2 from the sulfur deposited on the reactor bed, through the Thermal Oxidizer. At 9:54, May 15, 2007, they made notifications that the units were stable.

Discharge Preventable -

Notes/Remedial Actions

The incident consisted of NHT, CCR, DHT, and SRU shutdown events. They restarted their SRU as soon as the feed was available.