Fire extinguished after hydrogen leak at world’s largest chemical complex
03 May 2024
A hydrogen leak at BASF’s Ludwigshafen chemical complex in Germany ignited on 30 April before being quickly extinguished by the company’s own fire brigade. The chemical giant said in a statement that there were no injuries as a result of the incident, however part of the facility has been shutdown.
Image: BASF
The leak occurred at around 22:40 local time in the northern part of the facility, which is the world’s largest chemical integrated chemical complex spreading across 10 kilometres squared. In a statement, BASF said the plant fire brigade was deployed and stopped the product leakage soon after it was detected. A turbo extinguisher was briefly deployed to douse the flames.
The plant was shut down and the excess gases were burnt off using the flare. There were no injuries and the cause is being investigated. Although there was no explosion, there was a brief ignition which resulted in flames. BASF's environmental monitoring vehicles were deployed both inside and outside the perimeter of the site, BASF added, with slightly elevated readings being detected in the vicinity of the site.
The relevant authorities have been informed, BASF said.
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