Fire and explosions at Petrobras' Presidente Getúlio Vargas Refinery (Repar)

22 November 2019 to 15: 01

Explosions and fire at the Presidente Getúlio Vargas Refinery (Repar) of Petrobras scares and generates fear in residents of Araucária and even Curitiba

Flash, fire and noise from explosions at the Presidente Getúlio Vargas Refinery (Repar) of Petrobras, caused fear in nearby residents and also in distant neighborhoods of the Refinery. The episode took place on the night of Thursday, November 21st and in the early hours of Friday, the 22nd. Petrobras begins the sale phase of the RNEST, RLAM, REPAR and REFAP refineries.

Repar is located in the metropolitan region of Curitiba and generally has torches lit to burn waste gas from the production system.

Residents near the refinery said they heard a loud noise, as if it were an airplane turbine, and soon after the flash in the sky. The flames started late Thursday afternoon and only ceased around 4 am this Friday.

On the night of Thursday to Friday, the flames were much larger than usual. There are people who witnessed the flash in very distant neighborhoods, including in Curitiba, such as Água Verde, Umbará and even Campina do Siqueira.

Many calls were made by several people to the Fire Department, reporting a fire at Repar. However, that wasn't quite right.

According to fix, the flash was generated by the refinery product burning escape safety system, which is considered normal.

On Thursday night, however, the chimney was undergoing maintenance and hence the strongest flares but the unit operates normally.

In September, another case of flames in Repar scared the population. At the time, a Repar gas compressor stopped working and, therefore, more gas was released for burning in the chimneys as a safety measure.

In the same period, there was another fire at another Petrobras refinery, Revap, located in São Paulo. The incident occurred in the reservoir of tanks that store products used in the preparation of asphalt and fuel oil.