# Talk:Texas City refinery explosion

I recommend the following improvements to this article:
1) Is there a source to confirm that a carburetor was the source of the explosion?  I doubt that a truck on site at the refinery used a carburetor.  Perhaps fuel injector is more appropriate, but "fuel system" would be preferred if the actual source is unknown.
2) The comparison to Chernobyl seems superfluous and illegitimate.  It is not explained, nor was any evidence found in the US Chemical Safety Board's animation.  I will be removing this.
3) Language explaining the actual ignition at the truck seems contrived.  I'm not the one to do it, but let's clean it up with more technical phrasing.
4) Incorporation of the following article into the accident description:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070320/ap_on_bi_ge/bp_plant_explosion
All in all, this seems to be a description of the explosion more than the refinery.  Perhaps the explosion section should be moved to it's own article.
--67.176.29.1 22:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment: On item (1) above, perhaps it would be better to change "carburetor" to "intake". The History Channel's Engineering Disasters piece on the explosion stated it was a diesel truck. This seems consistent with the report that the engine was heard to rev when the vapors reached the intake, which is a likely occurence in a diesel engine when flamable vapors or liquids are introduced into the intake. This is much less likely to occur on a gasoline engine (implied by the carburetor mentioned in the current version of the article), where continued combustion at higher RPM's would have required greater airflow from opening the throttle to maintain a combustible air/fuel ratio. Diesel engines, on the otherhand, do not have actual throttle valves. The engine speed is controlled by varying the amount of fuel either injected into the cylinder or atomized into the intake air before the intake valve(s). The intake is free to take in air (or in this case, flammable vapors) unrestricted. From this distinction between how diesel and gasoline engines operate, my opinion is that "carburetor" should probably be struck from the article and replaced with "air intake". Ryanniemi (talk) 01:24, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I've made the correction in the article that I commented on above. Ryanniemi (talk) 10:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The 'Subsequent incidents' section includes the 2008 death of William Joseph Gracia.  The following section begins 'Following these additional safety incidents, on 17-Aug-2005'.  This does not make sense.  An event in 2005 cannot occur following a 2008 event.
All other incidents mentioned in this section occurred pre-August 2005.  Furthermore, these other incidents are all "process safety" incidents.  The subsequent section deals specifically with process safety incidents.
The simplest solution is to remove the William Joseph Gracia incident.  Sad as such incidents are, this particular industrial accident is not notable and is not presented in context.  I will remove this from the article. - Crosbiesmith (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Removed. - Crosbiesmith (talk) 19:53, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Not clear why. The section is explicitly titled "Subsequent incidents", which means subsequent to the March 23, 2005 explosion. I see nothing wrong with having a January 28, 2008 incident follow a March 23, 2005 event. Since the incident is documented, there is no reason not to list it. Victor Victoria (talk) 15:00, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
Done. I believe the "subsequent incidents" only need to list process safety ones. Occupational accidents, although tragic, are not relevant to the case in point. I have also ensured the bullet list heading clarifies that it refers to process safety accidents. JudeFawley (talk) 05:14, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Concern on the name: As a general rule an article name should either

Reflect a widely used name for the topic that is reasonably unique (i.e. that name should be generally recognized as referring to the article's topic as opposed to some other subject), or
Describe the topic specifically enough that there is no confusion.
This event is so recent I am not sure there is any particular name that has firmly stuck to it. And, regardless, I don't know that it can really be said that the average person knowledgeable about events in Texas City would recognize this title as uniquely referring to the 2005 event as opposed to the 1947 event or event the 2009 event. Even the term "Texas City refinery", though most commonly used to refer to the BP refinery can be used with others.
I would propose amending the title to specifically include the year in order to disambiguate it.
--Mcorazao (talk) 20:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I know people will say, "why not then change the title for Texas City Disaster?" The title of that article is widely recognized as the name for that historical event. Most people knowledgeable about the city's history would assume the 1947 event is what is being referred to. --Mcorazao (talk) 20:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

On the first paragraph of "Subsequent incidents" where it is mentioned that: "... a contractor had accidentally switched a carbon steel pipe elbow with a low alloy steel elbow..." should not it be the otherway around, which is "a low alloy steel elbow had been accidentally replaced by a carbon steel one"?
The thing is low alloy steels are used for example in vapor power plants main steam lines where temperatures are easilly higher than 500ºC and pressure is easilly higher than 300 bar. So, this means we are on the presence of High Temperature Hydrogen Attack characteristics:

the presence of high quantities of hydrogen (water steam);
high temperatures;
and high pressures.

In the upper section it says the explosion was ignited by a contractor's pickup truck as the engine was left running.
Farther down it says he had to crank the engine several times and at first the truck would not start.
Now was the engine running or was it off?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.238.107 (talk) 19:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC) 

This Texas City Refinery article does not do justice to the excellent narrative detailed in the CBS investigation report (REPORT NO. 2005-04-I-TX) of 2007. It does not describe in any detail the conflicts and the mistakes made during the 23rd, March 2005 and as a reference it is inadequate. Compare with the timeline narrative as detailed in Piper Alpha and you can see that one of the most infamous accidents in U.S. history has been poorly served to date. I feel there is too much focus on detail (car engine discussions etc) when the main narrative is incomplete and needs much more work. I can update the 'Explosion' section but I would need to delete the existing text, not sure if you all are OK with this.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blackrock36 (talk • contribs) 08:44, 22 April 2013 (UTC) 

Hello to whomever is watching this talk page. I have several minor updates I would like to suggest for this article. Before I detail the requests, I would like to point out that I am an employee of BP and am asking for these changes on behalf of the company as part of my job. If any editors here have been involved in discussion on the main BP article's talk page, then you have likely seen me there. 
Now, here are the updates I suggest for this article. Both of the following suggestions are for the introduction of the article.

I see that the end of the introduction has recently been updated to show that the Texas City Refinery was sold, the source supporting this currently is a press release on the BP website. I would like to suggest this Houston Business Journal article instead, as it is an independent source.
 Done
Additionally, the production figures in the second sentence of the introduction are from 2000. The same Biz Journal source could be used to update the introduction to show the current production numbers.
 Done
Please let me know if you have any questions. Again these are just suggestions. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 20:14, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Blackrock36 for adding the reference above into the article's introduction. The first part of this request is now complete. Would anyone be able to update production figures in the introduction with the new information from the added source? The information is in the Houston Business Journal article, which notes that the production as of February 2013 is 475,000 barrels per day. Thanks. Arturo at BP (talk) 17:55, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Re. production capacity, I have used and referenced Energy Information Administration data from January 2005. JudeFawley (talk) 05:16, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Was on youtube today and came across this video about the incident, made by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goSEyGNfiPM Now my basic understanding is that such a video may be in public domain in the united states? Could be it be added to the article? Macktheknifeau (talk) 09:03, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Having read the page and watched the video, I'm puzzled by the discrepancies between the two.
One of the more glaring differences relates to the pickup truck that is believed to have triggered the actual explosion. The video describes this as having been parked with two workers inside it (with engine idling) and notes that those workers attempted to stop the racing engine, but the page text instead has the pejorative words "A diesel pick-up truck, with its engine left idling, had been carelessly parked..." and says that nearby workers attempted to stop the racing engine. I've looked in the CSB report (which is cited as the basis for this particular paragraph) and it makes no mention of "carelessly parked", nor of any attempts to stop the engine by those in it or nearby.
There are several other differences that I'm not going to attempt to list here. Questions for anyone familiar with the incident and/or this page would include: is the CSB video regarded as definitive? is the CSB report regarded as definitive? why does this page contain at least one pejorative statement which doesn't seem to be present in the cited source? Smudgeface (talk) 20:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

The Explosion section reads: The explosion sent debris flying, instantly killing 15 people in the closest trailers and injuring 180 others. Then Explanatory note [e]: Ironically, the contractors working in the trailers closest to the explosion had just returned from a lunch organized to celebrate one month without lost-time injury. (Italics by me). Is "ironically" the best word to use? I understand why it is used, but at the same time, we are talking about the deaths of 15 people. Csm790 (talk) 03:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Csm790. I am the user that wrote that. Two things: 1) The view of this being ironic is taken directly from the reference cited (a process safety book by J.R. Thomson) which reads: "At about 1200, maintenance contractors left their temporary trailers near the isomerization unit for a lunch to celebrate 1 month without lost-time injury. The irony of this stretches belief. It also says something about the working environment at Texas City refinery that a mere one month without a lost-time injury was considered sufficient to merit a celebratory lunch" etc.; 2) I do not find the use of the term inappropriate / offensive. If anything, it stresses the disconnect between the way safety performance was measured and the actual conditions of the plant, an aspect which is dedicated some analysis elsewhere in the article.
Cheers,
JudeFawley (talk) 09:34, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
Hi, @JudeFawley,
Thank you for your answer. For me, the two uses of the word have different tones, but I won't split hairs about it. Csm790 (talk) 23:38, 23 March 2025 (UTC)