Worker killed in explosion at Indian Oil Corp’s Chennai plant

CHENNAI/BENGALURU (Reuters) -One worker was killed and another injured in a fire incident at an Indian Oil Corp (IOC) plant in the southern Indian city of Chennai on Wednesday, the state-run refiner said.

“The incident occurred during a planned maintenance activity of an ethanol storage tank managed by a contractor,” IOC said in a statement.

It did not provide a cause for the fire at the company’s Tondiarpet terminal, or specify how long the terminal will be closed; it only said it would take safety measures before resuming operations.

Supplies of petroleum, oil, and lubricants, which IOC sells in Chennai through the affected terminal, will be provided to the city from alternate locations, it said.

A few weeks ago, a major oil spill was reported on the Tamil Nadu coast from a refinery belonging to Indian Oil-owned Chennai Petroleum Corp during Cyclone Michaung.

In a separate incident in Chennai on Wednesday, around 60 people were hospitalised after an ammonia leak from a pipeline belonging to Coromandel International near its Ennore plant in the city.

(Reporting by Varun Vyas in Bengaluru and Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai; Editing by Savio D’Souza, Sohini Goswami and Shinjini Ganguli)