An oil tank explosion that killed 12 people on Saturday in
northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region will not
affect normal operation of the China-Kazakhstan Pipeline, a
workplace safety supervision official said on Sunday.
Sheng Shaokun, deputy head of the regional safety production
supervision administration, ruled out the possibility of a second
explosion in the tank being built in Dushanzi, a district of
Karamay City, about 260 kilometers from Urumqi, capital of
Xinjiang.
He added that no environmental pollution would result from the
blast since the tank contained no oil.
The explosion happened at around 7:20 PM Friday when 24 workers
were carrying out antiseptic treatment on the tank, belonging to
Dushanzi Petrochemical Company, a branch of China National
Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The 100,000-cubic-meter tank is
designed to store crude oil piped into China via the
China-Kazakhstan Pipeline.
The scale of the pipeline is immense, its transnational section
measuring 962.2 kilometers, joining a 246 km domestic section,
making a total length of over 1,200 kilometers.
The pipeline, which can carry 10 million tons of crude oil per
year, starts at Atasu in western Kazakhstan. It enters China at the
Alataw Pass on the Sino-Kazakhstani border before reaching its
destination at PetroChina Dushanzi Petrochemical Company.
The Sino-Kazakhstan pipeline was jointly built by China National
Petroleum Corporation, China's largest oil producer and
PetroChina's parent company, and construction companies from
Kazakhstan. The pipeline went into full commercial operation on
July 29 this year.
Initial investigations show that Saturday's blast might have
been caused by the volatility of organic substances in the oil
paint used for the tank's antiseptic treatment, said Sheng.
Apart from the 12 people killed, 12 others were injured, but six
of them have been discharged from hospital, Sheng said. An
investigation into the causes of the accident is still
underway.
(Xinhua News Agency October 30, 2006)