© Reuters. IQOXE invests 40 million in improving its facilities after the explosion
Tarragona, Jan 12 (.) .- The chemical company IQOXE has invested 40 million euros in improving its facilities in La Canonja (Tarragona) after the explosion of January 14, 2020, which caused three deaths and seven injuries, according to the business.
IQOXE begins this exercise with an ethylene oxide unit and four derivatives in operation, once the municipal and Generalitat licenses have been obtained.
The U-3100 unit has not been rebuilt by renouncing this technology, after the explosion that caused the death of two workers and a neighbor, eight injuries of varying degrees and extensive material damage.
IQOXE has already started up the derivatives units U-2500, U-2360 and U-350, after obtaining the mandatory administrative licenses last December.
For this, IQOXE has redone its safety report -evaluated by different external companies-, the safety opinion and has passed the inspection of all pressure equipment in the production units.
Beyond what is required by the regulations, it has also ‘bunkerized’ the control rooms (the two workers who died in the explosion were buried under a non-bunkerized control room).
In addition, it has improved the automatic safety systems that would stop the plant and activate cooling in the event of detecting significant differences in pressure or temperature at different points in the reactors.
The fire protection and extinguishing system has also been strengthened, with the installation of additional gas detectors; infrared flame detectors and a new water mist sprinkler system.
Finally, a system has been installed to keep a backup copy of the data of the production processes, in a safe space and away from the company’s production area.
According to the general director of IQOXE, Javier de Benito, more than a million hours of work have been invested between its own personnel and those of specialized service companies.
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