Ineos fined £400,000 over Grangemouth gas leak
- Published
Roads were closed around the Grangemouth plant following the leak in 2017
Petrochemical firm Ineos has been fined £400,000 after a leak from a cracked pipe created a huge flammable gas cloud at its Grangemouth plant.
Ineos Chemicals admitted that its safety inspections failed to detect the 10ins (25cm) long corroded pipe section which allowed ethylene gas to escape.
Some 17 tonnes of the flammable gas leaked from the fissure over a period of several hours in May 2017.
A court was told 97 workers were on site at the time of the incident.
Falkirk Sheriff Court heard that the plant contained more than 17,500 lines of pipe.
The section that failed had been wrongly identified as not high-risk and therefore not subjected to insulation strips as part of a regular inspection programme.
This allowed a process called chloride-induced stress load corrosion cracking to occur.
'Flammable gas'
Prosecutor Gavin Callaghan said: "The leak precipitated the formation of a flammable gas cloud of around 65,000 cubic metres, roughly the equivalent of 26 Olympic-sized swimming pools."
Mr Callaghan said the cloud reached ground level, but the plant's emergency plan was implemented, ensuring there was no ignition and no-one was hurt.
Surrounding roads were closed, workers evacuated, and the firm's on-site firefighters put up a curtain of water to prevent the gas reaching the plant's furnaces where it could have exploded.
Solicitor Paul Marshall, for Ineos, said the company's emergency response had minimised the risk of explosion.
He said the "isolated incident" was the result of "shortcomings in what was an otherwise comprehensive inspection regime".
Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said: "This was categorised internally as the highest category of major incident where there's a risk beyond the site and boundaries.
"The significant risk was of the ethylene gas igniting, particularly in light of the proximity of the furnaces.
"The vapour cloud could have exploded, resulting in significant thermal effects and could have generated a blast wave.
"There was a risk of death in the event that occurred."