KEMAMAN: Nearly 150 firefighters are battling a massive blaze which has destroyed two huge crude oil tanks and spread to a third, 16 hours after it broke out at the Kemaman Bitumen Company (KBC) here.
The fire at the Teluk Kalong Industrial Area, described as one of the largest in the state in years, has injured at least four people.
Columns of thick black smoke have filled the sky here and towering flames from the burning tankers can be seen from kilometres away.
The three affected oil tanks at the five-tank facility contained about 20,059 litres of oil.
“The first tank contained 4,800 litres of oil, the second had 1,580 litres and the third 13,679 litres.
“Of the three tanks, two have been gutted and we are trying to put out the fire at the third tank so that it does not spread to the other tanks.
“We are using foam to put out the fire from the bottom by injecting it into the tank,” Terengganu Fire and Rescue Department (JBPM) director Azlimin Mat Noor told reporters at the location today.
“We have obtained 8,000 litres (of foam to fight the fire) from several industrial companies and 6,000 more from JBPM,” he added.
The fire began at 6.15pm on Thursday, with the JBPM receiving an alert on the incident at about 6.26pm.
The operation, which began with a dozen or so firefighters, now involves 150 firemen from the Kemaman, Chukai, Kerteh, Kijal, Cheneh, Paka, Dungun, Bandar Al-Muktaffi Billah Shah, Marang, Kuantan, Gebeng, Bandar Indera Mahkota and Kuantan stations.
The firefighters are being assisted by 41 members of the Emergency Response Team (ERT), the Civil Defence Force, as well as other agencies.
Police have also been called in for crowd control and to cordon off the area for public safety.
An industrial expert told NSTP that KBC was incorporated in Malaysia on April 21, 2003 and is owned by the Tipco Asphalt Group of Companies based in Bangkok, Thailand and Subang Jaya, Selangor.
The 26ha refinery in Kemaman has a capacity of producing 30,000 barrels of crude oil daily; and in 2016 it reportedly processed 9.7 million barrels of crude oil or 1.5 million tonnes of asphalt and non-asphalt products.
The refinery, a one-of-a-kind in Southeast Asia, is designed to process heavy naphthenic crude oils and produces high quality naphthenic asphalt, atmospheric gas oil (AGO), vacuum gas oil (VGO) and naphtha.