Fire breaks out at Lone Star NGL’s Mont Belvieu facility in Texas

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Crews are working to contain a fire that broke out at Lone Star NGL’s Mont Belvieu facility in Texas, parent company Energy Transfer said late on Wednesday.

A contractor struck an underground pipeline at 16:45 local time (21:45 GMT), the company said in a statement.

Mont Belvieu city police reported that an explosion occurred at a facility on West Winfree.

Energy Transfer said its emergency response plan has been activated, and no injuries were reported.

It was unclear if production was affected.

The Mont Belvieu facility has a storage capacity of 50m bbl, 182 miles (293km) of natural gas liquids (NGL) transmission pipelines and a combined 790,000 bbl/day in NGL and propane fractionation facilities.

Fractionators separate raw mixed NGLs, also called Y-grade, into purity components: ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline. The US chemical industry relies predominantly on NGLs as a feedstock.