A fire took place at the International-Matex Tank Terminals’ (IMTT) St Rose facility in Louisiana, U.S. yesterday (29 July, 2020), but no one was injured as a result.

Traci Johnson, IMTT’s Vice President of environmental health, safety and security, said the pump pit that caught fire was handling heavy petroleum, which caused a large plume of black smoke.

That same plume appeared on social media later in the day, concerning locals and industry insiders alike, but Johnson added that IMTT’s own emergency response team put out the fire, and that no detrimental effects to local air quality were detected by the company’s air monitoring station.

The fire, which broke out in a pump pit at around 14:00 local time, was extinguished roughly half an hour later. A picture posted on Twitter showed black smoke rising into the air from the fire.

Overall, the St Rose facility has 207 tanks, the smallest of which is 150,000 litres and the largest of which is 500,000 bbl – the facility has a total capacity of 16.3 million bbl.

The site stores petroleum, petrochemical products, vegetable oils, commodity chemicals and ethanol.

At the time of writing, the cause of the fire is under investigation.

For more information visit www.imtt.com

30th July 2020