No one injured in explosion at Tulsa's Sinclair refinery

A powerful explosion rocked the Sinclair refinery complex in west Tulsa Monday afternoon, sending up a huge fireball and black smoke. <br/><br/>There's no word on the cause, but as News on 6 reporter

Monday, March 21st 2005, 4:29 pm

By: News On 6

A powerful explosion rocked the Sinclair refinery complex in west Tulsa Monday afternoon, sending up a huge fireball and black smoke.

There's no word on the cause, but as News on 6 reporter Steve Berg explains, it caused plenty of concern for the people who saw it.

Witnesses say the thundering blast was heard as far as five miles away. Braden Bartholic was doing landscaping work on the east side of the Arkansas River. "I saw an explosion, a fireball that was just giant, it was loud, loud, and I couldn't believe how loud it was." Somehow, despite the size of the explosion, nobody was hurt at the complex and everyone was quickly accounted for.

"There were people in the normal work vicinity, but no one was injured and we're allowing it right now to kind of burn itself out." Sinclair spokesman John Goodwin says Sinclair's fire brigade quickly brought the fire under control.

He says it happened in the middle of the complex in what he called a Penex unit, which refines gasoline. He says the blast originated in a flare drum, a relatively small container about the size of a car, but he wasn't sure if anything was in the drum at the time.

"It was out of service for maintenance right now and has been out of service for maintenance at the time. We don't the cause of the explosion or anything at this time. We'll have a committee formed and we'll investigate that."

With gas prices already skyrocketing, gas production is a big concern, but Sinclair says supplies should not be affected significantly.

While they're not certain about the exact cause, Sinclair has already ruled out terrorism or any weather-related cause.

The Sinclair Refinery is located on West 25th near US Highway 75.