LA Bucket Brigade : Refinery Accident Database

About the Database

CITGO Petroleum (1250), Lake Charles

Releases of Carbon Disulfide

LDEQ Accident Number Accident Date	Point Source(s)	Notes	Amount of Release
97987 2007-07-19	Tail gas treatment unit (TGII) at Sulfur Recovery Plant	Cause: Under Investigation Followup: Yes Notes: Sour H20 Stripper contained hydrocarbons which will foul the SRU. Off site impact of short duration
97218 2007-06-19	Tail gas treatment unit (TGII) at Sulfur Recovery Plant	Cause: No information given Followup: No Notes: DEQ representative goes to site - does fenceline readings after a CITGO reading indicates a reading of 24ppm of Hydrogen Sulfide. 0's across the board
96768 2007-06-04	B-7 Flare 3(IX)33 ; Sulften absorber vent at Sulfur Recovery Unit 3(XX-H)1 ; TGII Absorber Vent at Sulfur Recovery Unit 3(XX-J)5 ; furnaces and boilers ; sweet crude oil pipeline to Tank 101	Cause: short duration rain event; swirling winds 60mph+, hail and lightning - see notes - see not Followup: Yes Notes: The storm caused a loss of power at Substation 21 and power blips on lines from Entergy impacting the Sulfur Recovery Plant. CITGO believes water entered the Substation via a the joint b/w the roof and the side wall causing a fused switch failure. Loss of power resulted in higher pressure and increase in liquid levels causing flaring at B-7. Loss of amine flow and hydrogen sulfide absorption generated heavy smoking from some of the boiler stacks and upset the Sulfur Recovery Plant. Operations pnnel inadvertently overloaded the Central Amine Unit causing high SO2 emissions throughout the Refinery. The crude oil leak was caused by internal corrosion. Limited offsite impact from soot from smoking boilers. REMEDIAL ACTIONS --> A Root Cau
96456 2007-05-23	Sulften tail gas treatment unit	Cause: See notes Followup: No Notes: Leak in a cross exchanger increased hydrogen sulfide emissions from the absorber vent.
95526 2007-04-20	A-Sulfur Recovery Unit	Cause: analyzer malfunction at the A-Sulfur Recovery Unit Followup: No Notes: off site odor complaint
93048 2007-01-04	Tail gas treatment unit at Sulfur Recovery Plant	Cause: No information given Followup: No Notes: Claims emission was below RQ
114678 2009-05-04	Tail Gas 2 Unit	Cause: "B tower water stripper unit had foaming. This caused the relief valve in the tail gas unit to be picked up by an analyzer. The analyzer goes to alarm. The gases were then figured to release into the air." Followup: No Notes: No information given as to remedial actions. Classified as "a non-emergency" situation
132764 2011-08-01	Fired heaters and boilers Sulfen Vent Stack EQT297, Tail Gas II Vent Stack EQT298, B-7 Flare B-7 Flare EQT347 Sulften Vent Stack, Tail Gas II Vent Stack	Cause: The operator failed to manually reset the solenoid valve that controlled the level in the F-104 drum prior to restarting the JC-102 compressor. Based on the definition of control equipment inLAC 33:III.1 1 1, Citgo failed, in this incident, to diligently maintain control equipment in proper working order whenever emissions were being made. That initial failure to reset the solenoid valve cause a string of upsets, which began with the central amine upset. Followup: Yes Notes: Immediate corrective actions taken were removing excess hydrocarbon from the central amine unit, amine feed to the SRUs was reduced, and efforts were made to identify the hydrocarbon source. Citgo conducted an incident investigation, which outlines several actions to be taken. Additional letters from refinery regarding this incident: 8/18/11, 10/27/11
145516 2012-12-23	Tail Gas II vent	Cause: Citgo Petroleum reported elevated levels of reduced sulfur compounds in the Tail Gas II vent at the Lake Charles Manufacturing Complex, but no information is given about the cause of the release. In the initial notifications made by phone, Citgo reports that the suspected cause is a leak and that repairs were being made. Followup: Yes Notes: CITGO's preliminary review of the operating data from this incident indicated that an RQ for H2S may have been exceeded, but CITGO confirms that no RQs were exceeded in a report submitted 1/9/13.