Fire burns down IOC depot in Navi Mumbai
New Delhi   19-Jan-2011

A fire broke out at IndianOil’s (IOC) lubricant-filling depot on the outskirts of Mumbai in the wee hours of Tuesday but was brought under control after a six- hour fire fighting operation by the company.

IOC chairman B. M. Bansal said the fire was noticed by the security personnel deployed at the plant around 1.30 am and preliminary reports indicate that the fire could have been sparked by an electrical short circuit.

“The exact cause of the fire and the extent of product loss will be assessed as soon as the cooling operations are completed,” he said.

No one was injured in the fire, Bansal told journalists in Delhi.

The depot in Taloja outside Mumbai stored lube oil for packaging into containers but had no stocks of crude oil. Bansal said the fire was reported at around 1.30 am and was completely put out by 07.30 am.

The 1,800- kilolitre per month plant blends and fills lubricants in small cans and drums, besides filling speciality lubes.

It operates on single shift ( 8 am to 5 pm). The plant was shut when the fire broke out, Bansal said. The blaze gutted a shed used for storing packed lubricants.

All the other facilities of the plant including storage tank farms, manufacturing plant, laboratory and fire- fighting facilities are intact, he said.

A fire brigade official in Mumbai said the blaze began from containers containing lubricant oil. Thousands of drums with 200 litres capacity each, stored in the godown caught fire and destroyed around 40,000 litres of lubricant oil, the official said.

This was the third incident at IOC’s installations since October 2009.