At 5:17 a.m. on Wednesday, July 28, 2021, the LyondellBasell La Porte Complex gave the ‘all clear’ for the incident involving its acetyls unit leak.
Our response team acted quickly to isolate and contain the leak. Approximately 100,000 pounds of a mixture which includes acetic acid was released. Cleanup is continuing at this time. Air monitoring conducted during the incident did not indicate actionable levels and monitoring is ongoing.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Chemical Safety Board were all notified of the incident. A thorough investigation into the cause of the incident is underway, and we are cooperating fully with authorities.
We deeply regret this incident occurred. Two contractors were fatally injured and 30 workers, who were potentially impacted, were transported to local hospitals for evaluation and treatment. Twenty-four of the individuals were treated and released. We continue to monitor their conditions. We are keeping the families of the injured in our thoughts, and our prayers go out to their families.
The safety of our workforce and the communities where we operate are our priority. We want to understand what happened and why, so learnings from this can be applied throughout our company to help prevent a similar incident from happening again.
Updates are being provided on www.lyondellbasell.com/response. Individuals still seeking information on family members should call (281) 502-8119.
