August 1998 Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. is providing the enclosed information regarding an incident that occurred in one of our customer's operations recently involving the use of oxygen in an oil-contaminated oxygen lance. This communication is intended to raise your awareness of an important safety issue regarding the use of one of our products and to reinforce Air Products' leadership in communication of safety issues to our customers. We encourage you to communicate this to all your employees and customers, as appropriate. Oxygen lancing is used for scrap cutting and decarburizing steel in electric arc furnaces, and is a very common practice in minimills, steel foundries, and stainless steel shops.
Some shops use consumable lances that are operated manually through the slag door.
Most recently an explosion occurred and critically injured an operator during the lancing of a heat with an oil-contaminated lance. Oxygen vigorously accelerates combustion and may form explosive compounds when exposed to combustible materials or oil, grease, and other hydrocarbon materials. Improperly cleaned equipment and piping could result in a combustion reaction causing damage to equipment and injury to personnel. It is believed that the oil may have been used as a lubricant to cut threads on one end of the lance. Normal work procedures by the customer or their vendor require the removal of the oil prior to the use of the lances.