Refinery fire investigation “has been steady but slow”, injury count jumps to 36

Safety concerns in a fire ravaged area of the Co-op Refinery have slowed efforts to determine what caused the blaze.  

“We’re just getting into the heart of the investigation now,” said Albert Headrick, Deputy Chief of Public Safety with the Regina Fire Department. “We have been encountering some difficulties in regards to structural integrities of the building and the overhead pipe racks in regards to columns and support beams. That has to be shored up, that’s why we have Occupational Health and Safety on the scene, to provide assistance to make sure that our investigation team are safe“ 

The onsite investigation began after the scene was deemed safe. Damaged structures had to be secured and residual fuel cleared from the area. 

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Meanwhile, the injury count from last weeks explosion has jumped to 36 people. Thirteen were sent to hospital and as of Sunday, two people remained under medical care. Injuries ranged from burns and smoke inhalation to minor bruises, sprains and abrasions, according to Federated Co-operatives Limited.  

“We’ve been very focused on ensuring that people are mentally and emotionally taken care of,” said Vic Huard, Vice President of Corporate Affairs with the company. “So we made sure the councillors were available to all our employees and made those things available to all contract employees.” 

Huard said after the workers, focus shifts to the investigation, and also production at the plant. 

“We were down immediately on the day about 25 percent on our diesel,” Huard explained. “We’ve made some adjustments to various processes within the plant since then and were now down approximately 20 percent in our diesel production. And that reduction is going to be in place now for some months. We’re anticipating that we won’t be back to normal production of diesel until May of 2012. Gasoline production is still down; it was down on the day about 50 percent. And we are still down that amount however our units are coming back online now and we anticipate we will be back to near normal production gasoline, this weekend.”  

No timelines have been given for the completion of the investigation.