Union Carbide Delays Resuming Production of Chemical That Killed 2,000

Union Carbide Corp., which had been scheduled to resume production Friday of the chemical that killed more than 2,000 people in India, announced that it will delay the restart for at least 24 hours because of “conditions that don’t conform to our standards.”

Carbide spokesman Thad Epps said preliminary tests indicated problems in some “minor mechanical and instrument conditions.” He said the company would try again today to restart the methyl isocyanate unit, which has been shut down since the disastrous leak of the chemical five months ago in Bhopal, India.

The chemical had been scheduled to begin moving into underground holding tanks between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. Friday.

Crews on Thursday ran nitrogen through gas transmission lines to make sure that the unit was sealed. On Friday, operators had planned to use the lines to combine phosgene, chloroform and monomethylamine gases, beginning the reaction that makes methyl isocyanate.

Institute’s methyl isocyanate unit was shut down shortly after the Dec. 3 disaster in Bhopal. Since then, Carbide has installed $5-million worth of safety equipment to contain the poison gas in case of a leak, Epps said.