Chevron refinery: Workplace regulators expand probe into Richmond fire

California workplace regulators have opened an expanded probe of safety practices at Chevron’s Richmond refinery in response to the fire there last month that was ignited by hydrocarbon vapor coming from a corroded pipe, officials say.

The state’s Occupational Safety and Health Division is also conducting a similar investigation of Chevron’s practices at its refinery in El Segundo (Los Angeles County), as well as a separate probe into a contractor “whose workers were at risk” during the Aug. 6 fire in Richmond, said agency chief Ellen Widess. The probes are separate from the agency’s investigation into the actual fire, Widess said. She said the agency wants to ensure it looks “proactively” at any problems with the company’s refineries.

The issue in the expanded probes at Richmond and El Segundo is whether Chevron had a plan to protect workers in the event of a hydrocarbon-vapor pipe leak, Cal/OSHA officials say.

The probes were announced after U.S. Chemical Safety Board investigators revealed that during a maintenance shutdown in Richmond

“We are looking at what measures they had in place to protect their workers at the site. Their employees were there at the site, as well as Chevron employees.’’ Dean Fryer, spokesman for Cal/OSHA, speaking about Brand Energy Services

last year, Chevron failed to inspect the section of the pipe that eventually ruptured. The section turned out to be badly corroded by the time the fire erupted, with only about a penny’s thickness remaining from what had been a 5⁄16- inch-thick pipe. Chevron refinery manager Nigel Hearne said this week that the company believes that sulfur in the crude oil being refined in Richmond, combined with high heat and the low levels of protective silicon in the pipeline steel, combined to accelerate the rate of corrosion.

He said some experts at the refinery had known of the potential for rapid deterioration of pipelines in such cases, but that the information was not “effectively understood and acted upon.’’

After the fire, Chevron removed similarly thinned pipe from the El Segundo plant, which handles the same type of oil as the Richmond refinery, officials say.

A Chevron spokesman issued a statement saying the company had “no additional comment beyond saying that we are continuing to work cooperatively with the investigating agencies.”

The state’s investigation of the Chevron contractor involves a scaffolding company, Brand Energy Services, whose crew set up a scaffolding structure around the Richmond pipe on Aug. 6, after the leak was discovered, Cal/OSHA officials said.

“We are looking at what measures they had in place to protect their workers at the site,’’ said Dean Fryer, spokesman for Cal/OSHA. “Their employees were there at the site, as well as Chevron employees. We want to see what was in place.’’

Fryer said crews dealing with a fuel leak must be equipped with protective clothing and kept away from the possible source of a fire.

“We need to look at who should have actually been there — should they have been in that vicinity while Chevron was working on that pipe?’’ Fryer said.

Brand’s two workers left the site by the time the fire broke out, he said.

Ray Anchondo, the on-site manager for Brand at the Chevron plant, declined to comment.