storm knocks out refineries 
13 March 2008
 
Two of South Africa's biggest oil refineries have been completely or partly knocked out by the heavy rainstorms which battered Durban.  Municipal staff also had to break open the mouth of the Isipingo River on Wednesday to prevent a tide of raw sewage from wiping out fish life in the Isipingo estuary after several large sewage lines were torn open.

Some sources estimated that up to 30-million litres of untreated sewage had flowed into the river in a day, and it could take several days to plug the flow.

A preliminary analysis of rainfall readings also suggests that the storm was comparable to a one-in-50-year or possibly a one-in-100-year storm event, according to senior eThekwini official Andrew Mather.

The storm caused severe flooding of homes, businesses and other buildings and several major routes could not be used because of high water levels. Motorists also had to contend with malfunctioning robots at more than 20 intersections in the city on Wednesday, 12 March 2008.

A spokesperson for the Engen refinery in Wentworth said production had been "reduced dramatically" because of the cloudburst.  Herb Payne said 166mm of rain fell at the refinery in a few hours on Tuesday night and triggered a chain reaction that started with the electronics of a boiler unit being flooded and the boiler being shut down.  A fire broke out on a pipe joint just before 11.30pm, but it was brought under control in a matter of minutes.  The flooding caused a boundary wall in Tara Road to collapse, damaging part of the refinery's railway line.

To complicate matters, a simultaneous loss of power at the larger Sapref (Shell/BP) refinery in Prospecton meant that no crude oil could be pumped to Engen.

Payne said full production would resume as soon as repairs had been carried out to water-damaged equipment and the plant had been thoroughly inspected.  The refinery was expected to be running at 60 percent capacity on Wednesday night.  Sapref spokesperson Margaret Rowe said the refinery was not producing any fuel yet, after flooding tripped the heating boilers.

Initial start-up work began on Wednesday and it could take about five days before production rates returned to normal.

One of the immediate consequences for neighbouring residents in Wentworth, Austerville, Merebank and other suburbs were clouds of burning petroleum vapours being emitted from the flaring stacks of both refineries.

Desmond D'Sa, of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance, said residents had been subjected to 16 hours of flaring from the Engen refinery.  Flaring is normally an emergency process whereby the build-up of high levels of petrol vapours are burned up rapidly to reduce the danger of explosion during a sudden shut-down.  Elsewhere, the floods ruptured a large sewerage pipeline in at least two places in the Umlazi area.

Ethekwini water and waste chief Neil Macleod could not estimate how long it would take to repair the broken trunk lines, but said that, rather than entering the Isipingo sewage works, the effluent was flowing directly into the Isipingo River.  Other sources suggested there were at least six sewer breaks and that as much as 30-million litres had spilled into the river.

Although the exact quantity could not be confirmed officially, the volume is believed to be considerably higher than the amount that killed thousands of fish in Durban Harbour earlier this year.

This article was originally published on page 1 of The Mercury on March 13, 2008
 
Tony Carnie , www.iol.co.za