Thick smoke rises from the fire that broke out at the HPCL Visakh Refinery Residue Upgradation Facility (RUF) in Visakhapatnam on Monday. FILE PIC | Photo Credit: th-online Administrator An internal expert investigation team from HPCL, alongside officials from the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO), has been deployed to ascertain the exact cause of the fire that broke out at the Visakh Refinery on Monday night.
They visited the plant on Tuesday morning, .Speaking to The Hindu, Joint Chief Inspector of Factories (Visakhapatnam), M. V.
Sivakumar—who inspected the unit on Monday night and again on Tuesday—confirmed that safety officials are collecting samples for laboratory testing to determine what triggered the incident.The blaze erupted around 10 p.m. in the Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO) plant—a processing column measuring 12.7 metres in height with a volumetric capacity of 1,350 cubic metres. At the time of the incident, the vessel was operating at a temperature of approximately 150°C and contained about 13% of its total product volume.In simple terms, a refinery processes raw crude oil in stages to extract everyday fuels like petrol and diesel.
However, the leftover thick oil at the bottom still holds valuable fuel. The VGO plant acts as an intermediate recycler: it takes this heavy residual oil, heats it under vacuum conditions, and cleans it up so it can be broken down further into high-quality distillates like diesel and petrol, ensuring zero fuel is wasted.More than five fire tenders were immediately pressed into action, bringing the blaze completely under control within hours.
No casualties or injuries were reported.Following the damage sustained by the VGO unit, refinery engineers implemented a bypass mechanism to reroute the fuel stream directly, allowing overall oil refining operations across the complex to continue uninterrupted without passing through the affected plant. Industry sources estimate the direct physical losses at ₹10 crore to ₹15 crore, and say that HPCL may have to commission a new unit to replace the damaged infrastructure.The incident has once again brought safety management at the port city’s oldest refinery into focus.
In September 1997, a LPG pipeline leak caused a massive explosions in storage spheres, killing 60 people. In August 2013, a fire at the cooling tower claimed 28 lives.
More recently, in May 2021, a fire broke out at the Crude Distillation Unit-3, but no casualties were reported.Statutory authorities are reviewing safety protocols and the structural integrity of the units adjacent to the affected plant. Laboratory test findings are awaited.
Published - November 03, 2026 09:06 pm IST