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Oil Refiners to Pay $24 Million for Fatal Explosion By RITA CICERO, Andrews Publications Staff Writer Houston-based Motiva Enterprises Inc. and another oil refiner will pay a total of $23.7 million to settle a lawsuit filed by state and federal officials over a 2001 explosion at a Delaware refinery that killed one employee, injured several others and caused a massive sulfuric acid spill. The settlement stems from a July 2001 incident at the Motiva refinery in Delaware City in which a 415,000-gallon tank exploded. The tank contained a mix of sulfuric acid, water and hydrocarbons. Last year Premcor Refining Group Inc. bought the refinery from Motiva, a joint venture formed in 1988 between Saudi Refining Inc. and Shell Oil Co. Premcor has agreed to join the settlement filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The company will spend $7.5 million to improve safety at the refinery. Motiva will pay a $12 million civil penalty, reimburse the federal government and the state of Delaware for more than $170,000 in response costs, and finance a series of environmental projects valued at more than $4 million, according to statements issued by officials of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice and the state of Delaware. The EPA said the $23.7 million settlement is the largest ever secured in an enforcement action involving violations at one facility. Additionally, the $12 million civil penalty is the largest ever collected in Delaware for violations of environmental law, it said. On the day of the explosion Motiva allowed its maintenance contractors to make repairs on the tank's catwalk using welding and grinding tools, according to federal prosecutors. At the time, Motiva management allegedly knew the tank had a problem with leaks and was unsafe. That afternoon flammable vapors "reached a heat source" and the tank exploded, collapsing on a part of the catwalk where boilermaker Jeffrey Davis was working. Federal prosecutors said Davis' body was never found. Of the 1 million gallons of sulfuric acid released from the tank farm, 100,000 gallons spilled into the Delaware River and resulted in a fish kill. In 2003 Motiva reached a settlement with Davis' family, agreeing to pay them $36.4 million. Last year the company paid a $10 million criminal fine as part of plea agreement with the federal government involving violations of worker safety rules and the Clean Water Act. "This accident would likely have been averted by a stringent tank inspection and repair program," Rudolph Conteras, civil chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware, said in a statement. "Although Motiva saved thousands of dollars in putting off the inspection..., it has now paid more than $58 million as a consequence of its actions."
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