South Korean petrochemical plant blast kills four

An explosion at a South Korean petrochemical plant has killed four people and injured four, emergency services said on Friday.

The incident at the Yeochun NCC (YNCC) plant in the city of Yeosu comes as businesses face greater scrutiny under a new South Korean law punishing management for workplace accidents.

The incident occurred during a leak test in a cleaning process that is a procedural operation carried out every four years, a YNCC official told a briefing.

The regional office of South Korea’s labour ministry told Reuters that the ministry ordered the plant to halt production.

The YNCC plant is the newest of three facilities the company operates in Yeosu that convert naphtha, a highly flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture, into raw materials used in the manufacturing of chemicals, synthetic rubber and plastics.

YNCC’s third naphtha cracking plant in Yeosu, a coastal city about 340km (210 miles) southwest of Seoul, produces 470,000 tonnes per year (tpy) of ethylene.

YNCC’s first and second naphtha crackers in the city produce 900,000tpy and about 920,000tpy of ethylene, respectively.

YNCC’s entire capacity is 2.29 million tpy, about 1.1 percent of global capacity, Samsung Securities analyst Cho Hyun-ryul said.

“If the impact is limited to the incident site, supply disruption will not be significant,” he said.

“However, a suspension order for the entire production cannot be ruled out, as stricter rules are imposed on work sites since … the Severe Accident Punishment Act. If so, this could affect not just 470,000 but 2.29 million tonnes.”

The new South Korean law, which took effect late last month, carries one or more years of jail or fines up to 1 billion won ($834,028) on business owners and management deemed responsible for workplace accidents resulting in injury or death.