Torrance and the Mobil Refinery
The Mobil Oil Corp. refinery occupies about 750 acres in northeast Torrance and is the city’s largest taxpayer and landholder. The plant has 1,000 full-time workers and a variety of contractors.
The refinery, which opened in 1929, was rebuilt in the late 1960s. It can process 130,000 barrels of crude oil and produce 90,000 to 100,000 barrels of gasoline daily, about 13% of the gasoline consumed in Southern California.
It is the only major refinery in the region that uses hydrofluoric acid to make gasoline. Oil industry tests in 1986 showed that a 1,000-gallon spill of hydrofluoric acid could produce a toxic cloud lethal to all exposed to it within a range of five miles. Mobil typically stores an estimated 29,000 gallons of the acid at the plant.
The refinery has had two major fires in 12 years.
In 1979, three people were killed, including a teen-age motorist whose car stalled in a cloud of butane gas that drifted over Crenshaw Boulevard from the tank farm. When she restarted her engine, the large cloud ignited; she and two refinery workers were fatally burned.
On Nov. 24, 1987, the refinery unit that uses hydrofluoric acid exploded. The 17-hour fire at the alkylation unit injured 10 and caused $17 million in damage. About 100 pounds of hydrofluoric acid were released, apparently harming no one.
It was after that accident that Torrance officials began to raise questions about safety procedures at the refinery. Here is a summary of the major developments since then:
* The Torrance City Council, in May, 1988, hired an outside consultant to study the refinery and later ordered Mobil to write a risk-management prevention plan. City officials concluded that neither report was adequate.
* There were two more worker deaths in 1988, one of them in a fall. The second happened July 15, when the refinery experienced two explosions. In the more serious incident, chemicals in a tank being cleaned exploded, killing one worker and seriously burning two others.
* During 1988, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted two investigations at the plant. The inquiry into the 1987 alkylation unit fire found four “serious violations” of federal safety regulations. OSHA defines a serious violation as one “where there is a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result and where the employer knew, or could have known, of the hazard.” Mobil paid a $4,000 fine.
* The second OSHA investigation, which covered the entire plant, began in September, 1988. It led to 35 citations of Mobil, including 12 for serious violations. Mobil has contested the findings.
* On April 7, 1989, Torrance sued Mobil, asking the Superior Court to declare the refinery a public nuisance and let the city regulate it. A confidentiality agreement provided that all material shared in the landmark case be kept secret.
* On Oct. 18, 1990, before the trial, Torrance halted its suit in return for Mobil’s agreeing to a consent decree governing plant operations. The decree’s chief ingredients: Mobil’s modifying or phasing out the use of hydrofluoric acid by the end of 1997, and the appointment of a safety adviser to monitor refinery safety. A retired judge oversees the agreement, which will be in effect at least through 1997.
* On May 30, the judge picked as safety adviser Westinghouse Electric Corp., Mobil’s preference. Torrance officials, who have spent $1.4 million on the lawsuit, expressed disappointment in the choice.
* On Sept. 3, Westinghouse set up the safety adviser, who began work this summer, in an office in Cypress.
