LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / January 5, 2000

NORCO – Shell/Motiva and Shell Chemical (west site) had a massive power failure early Sunday that forced a shutdown of both facilities.

Spokesperson Lilly Galland said Shell lost total power to a substation operated by Entergy.

John Adams, customer service manager for Entergy, said the cause of the outage was contamination over time, where air discharges from the plants eroded one transmission line at 4:14 a.m.Site supervisor Ed Robinson added on Tuesday that restoration of the units back on line will continue through next week.

“We’re making moves, and there will be a lot of flaring. Some are ready tobe brought up now, but none are up at this time.”Adams said the problem is common around such petrochemical plants, for which reason a backup transmission line is common practice.

Once the first line lost power, the backup line was due to kick on moments later. However, Adams said, a shield wire above that backup powertransmission line broke for some unknown reason, fell into the backup transmission line and burned out the backup.

“It’s a very rare instance,” Adams said.

Nevertheless, power was restored at the plants in 24 minutes. However,the power outage required both plants to shut down all operating units at both the refinery and the chemical plant.

All boiler and steam systems will be brought up slowly, Galland said, and as of Tuesday morning all units remained offline.

Units will be brought gradually back online all week, with some noise and elevated flaring expected for several days, Galland added.

The administrative buildings were not affected by the power outage.

“The units will be restarted once a reliable source of power is assured,” Galland added.

Anyone with questions can call the site supervisor at 465-7342.

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