Refinery Owners Must Ensure That 'Flare Rainout' Events Do Not Occur if They Intend to Reopen, EPA Warns in Letter Listing Restart Conditions
The Limetree Bay Refinery, now under the ownership of West Indies Petroleum and Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation LLLP, must ensure that "flare rainout" events such as the incident that culminated in the refinery's closure in 2021 do not occur if the new owners intend to restart refining at the facility.
2022-03-07 12:30:30 - VI News Staff
This requirement was among several demands the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Dept. of Justice sought as seen in a letter the federal authorities made public on March 2.
"It is very important to avoid any repeat of the incidents that occurred at the Refinery in the first half of 2021, involving emissions of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), sulfur dioxide (SO2), uncombusted hydrocarbons, and/or flare rainout from the Refinery," the EPA letter stated.
The letter directs WIPL and PHRT to meet a number of regulatory compliance rules governing flare management so as to ensure safeguards from future releases.
The EPA also cited regulations that require the refinery to conduct benzene fenceline monitoring, "and if that monitoring shows annual exceedances above the specified action level, conduct a root cause analysis (RCA) to determine the causes and undertake appropriate corrective action. The EPA believes that Limetree’s RCA was inadequate and needs to be reevaluated.
The EPA wrote to Limetree Bay Refinery in January about the benzene fenceline exceedance matter in a separate letter, stating, "EPA has reviewed this submittal and is concerned that the root cause analysis is poorly reasoned and thus unlikely to have identified all of the actual root causes of the exceedances or all of the appropriate corrective actions. If Limetree or a new owner were to restart the refinery, further analysis would be needed to identify the root causes contributing to exceedances of the action level, and corrective actions to prevent further exceedances of the action level would need to be implemented."