Production of Rocket Fuel Oxidizer to Resume Soon, Chemical Firm Says
Officials of Kerr-McGee Corp. said Thursday that they hoped to resume production of a critical rocket fuel oxidizer within days after complying with recommendations made by a six-member safety team.
Members of the team of industrial safety experts said the safeguards recommended in a report could be carried out within one week.
The safety panel was formed to review the Kerr-McGee operation after the nation’s only other ammonium perchlorate plant, Pacific Engineering & Production Co., was destroyed by explosions May 4, killing two people and injuring 326.
Kerr-McGee Senior Vice President Tom McDaniel said the company is under no pressure from the federal government to resume production, although it is the only plant in the nation now capable of producing ammonium perchlorate, an oxidizer used in the space shuttle and military rockets.
A Las Vegas newspaper reported this week that fire officials have ruled out natural gas as a cause in the Pacific Engineering blast, despite claims by company officials to the contrary.
A Clark County fire official, who asked not to be named, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal there is “nothing at the scene that supports the theory that natural gas was to blame for the fire or explosion.”
Pacific Engineering officials claimed two weeks ago that a leaking natural gas line was responsible for the explosions.
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