Incident date: 2021-05-13
NAICS industry code: 213112

A five-man crew had been subcontracted by Laredo Petroleum to replace the fire tubes on a heater treater and clean the inside of the tank. Three employees with Dorado Construction Group were contracted as a roustabout crew to clean the tank and replace the fire tubes, one employee of Mulholland Energy Services was contracted to operate the vacuum truck and remove the sludge from the tank, and one employee of Permian Service Co., LLC  was hired to operate a hot oil truck to provide water to the roustabout crew for cleaning. At approximately 1:00 p.m. the employees had completed pulling out the old fire tube and had begun the process of cleaning the inside of the tank from the open hatch when an explosion occurred. Three employees were hospitalized for second and third degree burns to their arms and face.

Hazard classification:
code_event: title: Explosion, unspecified
code_source: title: Oil drilling rigs and machinery
code_nature: title: Third or fourth degree heat (thermal) burns
code_body: title: Multiple body parts, n.e.c.
severity: low