PEMEX LPG BLEVE Explosion

San Juan Ixhuatepec, Mexico City, Mexico

19 November 1984
At approximately 05:35 AM on 19 November 1984, a series of catastrophic
explosions and a major fire occurred at the government owned and operated
PEMEX (Petroleous Mexicanos) LPG Terminal at San Juan Ixhuatepec, Mexico
City, in Mexico. The fires lasted until 11:00 PM. As a direct consequence of these
events, 574 individuals were killed and 7,231 were injured, of whom 144 later died
in the hospital. Most of the firefighters who responded to the scene were killed by
the continuing explosions. Additionally, some 39,000 people were rendered
homeless or were evacuated, and the terminal was destroyed. The severe traffic
jams caused by the fleeing residents near the plant blocked access to the area by
emergency and rescue teams.

Plant Description
It was a fairly modern plant, only 25 years old, built to API standards. It functioned
as an LPG bulk storage and distribution depot. The facility included six spherical
storage tanks and 48 horizontal bullets. The overall storage capacity was about
16,000 m3. Three refineries supplied the facility with LPG on a daily basis through
pipelines. At the time of the disaster, the storage tanks together contained about
14,000 m3 of LPG (80% propane and 20% butane).
When the PEMEX plant was built, the nearest housing was about 300 meters from
the plant boundary, but by the time the disaster occurred, low-income, residential
housing had encroached to within 100 meters of the site perimeter. The houses were
of flimsy construction and were believed to have had an average of five inhabitants
per house.
There were also two neighboring installations engaged in the distribution of bottled
LPG, and each had about 20 storage bullets. Both of these facilities were sufficiently
close to be badly damaged and contribute to the disaster.

Number of
Vessels

Individual
Nominal
Capacity (m3)

Total
Capacity (m3)

Total
Inventory (m3)

Spheres

2,400

4,800

4,320

Spheres

1,500

6,000

3,000

Bullets

270

1,080

972

Bullets

14

180

2,520

2,268

Bullets

54

324

292

Bullets

45

135

121

Bullets

21

36

756

680

Total

54

15,615

13,653

What Happened (1/4)

At the time of the accident, the plant was being filled from the Minatitlan Refinery,
about 400 km away via the 8-inch Minatitlan-Mexico LPG pipeline, as on the
previous day, the plant had become almost empty. The two large spheres and the 48
bullets were filled to about 90% of capacity, and the 4 smaller spheres, to about
50%.
The cause of the accident seems to have been the overfilling of the 4 largest bullets in
the southwest corner of the plant located immediately in front of the two larger
storage spheres and the failure of their pressure relief valves to lift, resulting in
overpressure in an 8-inch line between those 4 bullets and the nearby spheres.
At 5:25 AM, a drop in pressure was noticed in the refinery control room and also at
a pipeline pumping station. The 8-inch line between the spheres and the four bullets
had ruptured, causing the sudden pressure drop. Unfortunately, though, the
operators in the refinery could not identify the cause of the pressure drop, and
continued pumping.

What Happened (2/4)

The release of LPG from the ruptured 8-inch line, driven by the continued
pumping, produced an expanding cloud of LPG gas that quickly grew to a size of
200 m x 150 m x 2 m high. There was a light, southwesterly breeze, estimated at
about 0.4 m/s that morning, and the expanding gas cloud slowly drifted southwest
down a slight slope. It drifted over nearby residential housing, and 10 minutes
after the rupture, at 5:35 AM, the expanding LPG cloud reached a flare pit about
100 meters West of the point of release.
When the drifting gas cloud reached the flare, it ignited, resulting in a massive
Unconfined Vapor Cloud Explosion, creating a 360 meter fireball and a violent
ground shock, which was the first of the nine explosions to be recorded on the
seismograph of Mexico City University, some 30 kilometers away.

What Happened (3/4)

From the original point of rupture, there was a directional flame that was
impinging on one of the smaller spheres. Within 12 minutes, the small sphere had
BLEVEd, creating another fireball estimated at 300 meters in diameter. It was
this this second explosion that did most of the structural damage to the
surrounding houses. During the next hour and a half, seven more large and
violent explosions occurred, the last being recorded on the university seismograph
at around 7:00 AM.
The 4 smaller spheres and 5 of the larger bullets BLEVEd in rapid succession,
with many numerous, smaller explosions continuing until about 11:00 AM due to
the BLEVE'ing of at least 10 of the smaller bullets and to further unconfined
vapor cloud explosions.
Large numbers of vessel fragments and ruptured bullets weighing up to 20 tons
were propelled hundreds of meters, with some fragments traveling more than 400
meters. One 20-ton bullet traveled 1,200 meters, and 11 more bullets were
propelled more than 100 meters. Only four of the original 48 bullets remained on
their supports.

What Happened (4/4)

The two, larger diameter spheres did not explode, but their legs had no thermal
insulation and soon buckled due to the intense heat. The two spheres thus quickly
collapsed and catastrophically failed, releasing their contents to fuel the large
number of major ground fires within the plant. LPG rained down, and surfaces
covered in liquid LPG were set alight.
The damage to the nearby houses was severe. There were additional explosions
within the houses, and many people suffered injuries and serious burns from
flaming drops of LPG. Virtually all the houses within 300 meters of the plant were
completely destroyed.
It was not until very late in the disaster that somebody at the refinery pressed the
emergency shut down button, stopping the pumps and the flow of LPG to the
facility. In fact, the pumping and flow of LPG through the pipeline and into the
burning and exploding plant continued at the normal rate of 75,000 bbl per day
until 6:40 AM, more than one hour after the initial explosion. At that rate, the
raging fires were fed during that initial hour with an additional 3,175 bbl of LPG.

Problems at the Plant (1/2)

The plant had no gas detection system.
The pressure control and pressure relief systems were mis-designed, in poor
repair and failed, and this was made worse by mis-design of the manifolding of the
vessels in each row to common headers in such a way that it did not provide for
effective isolation of the vessels.
There was no system to shut down the three pipelines automatically or to shut
them down remotely at the plant perimeter. There was no automatic emergency
isolation system, and the manual isolation valves were in close proximity to the
burning and exploding vessels.
The site of the PEMEX plant was very restricted, and the entire firefighting
system was too close to the central area in which a major fire would start. In
particular, the firewater pump house was only 50 meters from the center of the
storage area. The spheres were not provided with cooling firewater systems, and
the supporting legs of the spheres were not thermally insulated.
The close proximity of a densely populated area contributed greatly to the high
death toll.

Problems at the Plant (2/2)

A safety committee inspected the plant facilities on September 17, October 5, and
November 5, 1984, and found among other things, the following deficiencies, and
noted on November 5, 1984, just two weeks before the disaster, that none of the
deficiencies had yet been rectified:
The relief valve on the receiving manifold for the Poza Rica-Mexico LPG
pipeline was missing.
An additional relief valve was needed on the receiving manifold for the
Minatitlan-Mexico LPG pipeline because the flow in that line had been increased
to 75,000 bbl/day.
The pressure gauge on the receiving manifold for the Minatitlan-Mexico LPG
pipeline gave erroneous readings.
Approximately 25% of the pressure gauges on the bullets, as well as those on the
spheres, were not working.

Responsibility (1/2)
The total destruction of the terminal occurred because the overall basis of plant
safety was insufficient, mis-design in the layout of the plant, inadequate fire
protection and firefighting systems, a lack of gas detection systems and ineffective
emergency isolation systems. In particular,
The spheres were not equipped with adequate cooling water systems to prevent
BLEVEs and their legs were not thermally insulated to prevent collapse. The fire
pumps were too close to the spheres and bullets, and thus, the initial blast
completely disabled the terminals firewater system.
Failure to shut down the pipeline system promptly contributed greatly to the
severity of the accident.
Mis-design of the manifolding of the vessels in each row to common headers
contributed to the severity of the accident by not providing effective isolation, so
that when one vessel in a row over-pressured and failed, resulting in a BLEVE, the
others in the row failed similarly, in quick succession.

Responsibility (2/2)
Also, either due to damage from the initial explosion and the BLEVEd bullets,
or due to over pressuring, the fill lines to the four smaller spheres leaked and the
gas ignited, creating fires which impinged on the bottoms of the spheres causing
them to overpressure and explode.
Traffic jams, which built up as local residents tried to escape from the area,
blocked the arrival of emergency services.