Authorities have ordered workers off one in all petrochemical company Yeochun NCC's (YNCC) naphtha crackers within the city of Yeosu after a blast killed four people and injured four. The incident at YNCC's third plant in Yeosu comes as businesses brace for greater scrutiny under a replacement South Korean law punishing management for incidents involving worker death.
The regional office of South Korea's labour ministry told Reuters that the ministry ordered workers to halt workthe whole third plant. "There isn't any disruption in production, but we've entirely halted maintenance and repair work," a political candidate at YNCC told Reuters.
YNCC's first and second plants are operating, the YNCC official said, adding that the blast occurred during a leak test in an exceedingly cleaning process that's a procedural operation meted out every four years.
YNCC's third naphtha cracker in Yeosu, the positioning of the explosion, produces 470,000 tpy of ethylene. YNCC's first and second naphtha crackers in Yeosu produce 900,000 and about 920,000 tpy of ethylene each.
YNCC's entire capacity is 2.29 MMtpy, about 1.1% of world capacity, "If the impact is proscribed to the incident site, supply disruption won't be significantSamsung analyst said.
"However, a suspension order for the whole production can not be ruled out, as stricter rules are imposed on work sites since... the Severe Accident Punishment Act. If so, this might affect not just 470,000 but 2.29 MMt." The new South Korean law, which took effect late last month, imposes criminal punishment of 1 or more years of jail or fines up to 1 B won ($834,028) for severe industrial accidents on business owners and responsible management, if they violated a requirement of safety measures stipulated within the law.