Intercontinental Terminals Co. News

Chemical Leak Set Off Fire that Shut Houston Shipping Channel

HOUSTON — The U.S. Chemical Safety Board said on Wednesday a fuel leak, possibly due to open valves and a running pump, set off a massive blaze at a Mitsui & Co Ltd petrochemical storage operation along the Houston Ship …

Exxon Faces Lawsuit Over Air Pollution from Petrochemical Fire

HOUSTON — Exxon Mobil Corp was hit with a lawsuit on Thursday over pollution from a fire at the company’s Baytown Olefins Plant, according to an attorney for Harris County, Texas, which filed the suit. The fire was being investigated …

Charges Filed After Fire at Texas Petrochemical Facility

HOUSTON — Water pollution charges were filed Monday against a company that owns a Houston-area petrochemical storage facility where a large fire that burned for days in March caused chemicals to flow into a nearby waterway. The Harris County District …

Investigators to Begin Hunt for Cause of Texas Petrochemical Disaster

U.S. investigators hope this week for the first time to enter the site of a massive fuel fire and chemical spill outside Houston to begin the hunt for a cause and to determine whether the operator followed safety regulations. The …

Chemical Disaster Zone Remains No-Go Zone Two Weeks After Blaze

Two weeks after a chemical storage complex near Houston erupted in flames and menaced tens of thousands of people with dangerous fumes, the site remains too hazardous for investigators to approach. Intercontinental Terminal Co. is still trying to drain millions …

Firefighters at Houston Chemical Disaster Scrambled for Foam

Firefighters confronted with the worst Gulf Coast industrial disaster in 14 years had to call on outside sources to augment their supply of the special foam required to extinguish chemical blazes. Intercontinental Terminal Co. confirmed it appealed to other companies …

Shipping Resumes in Houston Channel Fouled by Chemical Spill

The U.S. Gulf Coast’s most important industrial waterway partially reopened on Monday after it was polluted with cancer-causing benzene and toxic runoff from the region’s worst chemical disaster in more than a decade. A two-mile stretch of the Houston Ship …

Houston Ship Channel Remains Closed as Plume Leaches Benzene

Some vessels will be allowed to enter a tributary to the Houston Ship Channel this morning but more than 60 ships remain stranded by the closure of the main waterway as a result of a cloud of cancer-causing benzene from …

Houston Chemical-Fire Smoke Set to Descend, Closing Schools

About the photo: Residents look on at the plume of smoke rising from a fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Co. petrochemical storage site on Tuesday. As a towering plume of black smoke billowed a mile above Houston for a third …