3 die in blast at PetroChina's Lanzhou plant

12-Dec-06

Three workers were killed in a blast in part of a unit making maleic anhydride, at Lanzhou Petroleum and Chemical Company on Monday afternoon. Details are awaited. PetroChina and its parent CNPC have been plagued by a series of accidents including an explosion in northern Jilin last November, when 100 tons of toxic chemicals were poured into a major river, temporarily poisoning the drinking water of millions of people downstream. In late June, a gas leak at a gasoline-making unit in Lanzhou refinery, as it was restarting from maintenance, sparked an explosion that killed one and injured 10.