Killed

At least one person was killed and dozens were injured, some seriously, in an an explosion and fire at the Williams Geismar Olefins plant in Ascension Parish north of New Orleans early Thursday morning.

The mayor of San Bruno, CA — where a natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion killed eight nearly three years ago — on Wednesday called for the California Attorney General’s Office and state lawmakers to investigate replacement of the state regulatory legal team investigating the event.

Two workers were killed and three others hospitalized Friday morning in an oil well blowout in the Bone Spring tight sands formation in West Texas, near Barstow.

A fire in February that killed one person and destroyed a city block in Kansas City, MO, was caused by the “accidental ignition of natural gas vapors that accumulated” inside a restaurant, according to a report by the Kansas City Fire Department. Pilot lights had been left on at JJ’s restaurant despite warnings from crews investigating a nearby gas line rupture, and the fire began in the kitchen with “heat from an open flame or smoking materials” listed as the heat source (see Daily GPI, Feb. 22). However, the report did not assign blame as to what caused the Missouri Gas Energy pipeline to explode. The report was compiled by the city, the city fire department, the police department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Missouri Public Service Commission and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration are conducting separate investigations.

The Missouri Public Service Commission continues to investigate a natural gas explosion in Kansas City, MO, on Feb. 19, which killed at least one person and injured more than a dozen others (see Daily GPI, Feb. 22). According to Kansas City Manager Troy Schulte, Heartland Midwest LLC did not have a permit to drill and excavate near the site. A Heartland crew contracted by Time Warner Cable Inc. was installing a fiber optic cable when it apparently punctured a two-inch diameter natural gas pipeline operated by Missouri Gas Energy.

Pennsylvania regulators on Thursday approved a revised settlement raising to $500,000 the penalty on UGI Corp. for an explosion that killed five people in Allentown, PA two years ago.

Pennsylvania regulators Thursday approved a revised settlement raising to $500,000 the penalty on UGI Corp. for an explosion that killed five people in Allentown, PA two years ago.

Authorities Tuesday said no one was killed after a 20-inch diameter transmission line owned by NiSource Inc. exploded just after midday near its Columbia Gas Transmission Lanham Compressor Station near Sissonville, WV, a rural community of 4,000 about 15 miles north of the state capital, Charleston.

Ten people were reportedly killed Tuesday following a fire at a natural gas pipeline distribution center near the South Texas-Mexico border.