1998 Esso Longford fire

1998 industrial disaster in Victoria, Australia November 2020 January 2012 1998 Esso Longford fire Longford plant.jpg A view of the Longford plant Australia Victoria center none Location of Longford in the state of Victoria, around 216 km (134 mi) east of Melbourne 1 Australia Victoria relief location map.jpg Longford 120 38 09 51 S 147 05 13 E Melbourne left Steel pog.svg 6 37 48 51 S 144 57 47 E yes 1998 09 25 12:26pm(AEST) 20 days until normal gas supply resumed Esso Australia Resources Ltd. Longford Gas Plant 1 (GP1) Longford, Victoria, Australia -38.224 147.167 type:event_region:AU inline,title Jet fire and conflagration Low temperature embrittlement and thermal stress of a heat exchanger - Fires lasting more than two days- Gas supplies to Victoria resumed on 14 October 1998 8 2 US$443 million (US$987 million in 2021) By royal commission, 12 November 1998 – 15 April 1999 Graeme Johnstone On 25 September 1998 a catastrophic fire occurred at the Esso natural gas plant in Longford, Victoria, Australia.Event – Complex Emergencies – Longford Gas Plant Accident and Victorian Gas Supply Crisis http://www.disasters.ema.gov.au/Browse%20Details/DisasterEventDetails.aspx?DisasterEventID=2152 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20120426001729/http://www.disasters.ema.gov.au/Browse%20Details/DisasterEventDetails.aspx?DisasterEventID=2152 26 April 2012 Australian Emergency Management Institute A pressure vessel ruptured resulting in a serious jet fire, which escalated to a conflagration extending to a large part of the plant. Fires lasted two days before they were finally extinguished. Two workers were killed and eight others injured. Natural gas supply to the state of Victoria was severely disrupted and was not fully restored until 14 October.Kletz 2001 267 Total estimated property costs amounted to US$443 million (US$987 million in 2021),Marsh Specialty https://www.marsh.com/cz/en/industries/energy-and-power/insights/100-largest-losses/100-largest-losses-report-download.html 100 Largest Losses in the Hydrocarbon Industry Marsh 2022 27th New York, N.Y. 27 Marsh (company) 12 January 2024 registration while financial losses to the companies affected by the gas shortage were estimated at around A$1.3 billion. The Victorian state government established the Longford Royal Commission to publicly investigate the causes of the accident. Context In 1998, the Longford gas plant was owned by a joint partnership between Esso and BHP. Esso was responsible for the operation of the plant. Esso was a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based company Exxon, which has since merged with Mobil, becoming ExxonMobil. Dawson Brooks 1999 11 Built in 1969, the plant at Longford is the onshore receiving point for raw natural gas output from the Marlin, Barracouta and Snapper fields in the Bass Strait, as well as crude oil from further offshore oil platforms. The plant complex consisted of three gas processing plants (Gas Plants 1, 2 and 3 or GP1, GP2 and GP3) and one crude oil stabilisation plant (CSP). Dawson Brooks 1999 pp. 11, 13 It was the primary provider of natural gas to Victoria and provided some supply to New South Wales. The gas feed from the Bass Strait consisted of liquid and gaseous raw natural gas, containing methane, ethane, propane and butane, together with water vapours and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). In order to produce natural gas of commercial specifications, it was necessary to separate nearly all non-methane content. Water and hydrogen sulfide were first removed from the gas. The resulting stream still contained both liquid condensate and gaseous components.Pike Howard Methods in Chemical Process Safety 2017 Academic Press 978-0-12-811547-3 Khan Faisal 1 Cambridge, Mass.; San Diego, Cal.; Kidlington, England; and London, England 48–55 Learning from the Experience 10.1016/bs.mcps.2017.02.002 thumb|500x500px|Process schematic of Gas Plant 1 (for simplicity's sake only one absorber is shown) Gas Plant 1 was a lean-oil absorption plant separating methane from liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by stripping the gas using a liquid hydrocarbon stream called "lean oil" (a light oil similar to aviation kerosene). This occurred in two absorbers (working in a parallel configuration), large vertical pressure vessels in which chilled raw natural gas rose up from the bottom, on its way up shed heavier components (ethane, propane and butane) against the falling stream of lean oil and finally left the vessel at the top as methane. Lean oil, on the other hand, absorbed heavy gas components on its way down and thereby left the absorber having become "rich oil". Most of the heavier gas components left at the bottom of the absorbers in the form of LPG.Atherton Gil 2008 167 Coupled with the absorbers was a system of columns, pumps and heat exchangers used to regenerate the lean oil from the rich oil stream by separating from it heavier gas components the oil had stripped from the natural gas in the absorbers.Atherton Gil 2008 169Hutchison Boult Pitblado Kenny 2001 308–309 Gas Plants 2 and 3, which were built in 1976 and 1983 respectively, used cryogenic technology, rather than absorption, to produce commercial-grade natural gas. At the time of the accident, Longford was able to process in excess of 530 MMscfd of sales gas, 37,700 barrels per day of LPG, and 188,500 barrels per day of crude oil.12 October 1998 Victoria Gas Supplies Restarting After Blast https://www.ogj.com/home/article/17225375/victoria-gas-supplies-restarting-after-blast subscription 18 January 2024 Oil & Gas Journal Fire There were several precursors to the breach of containment that escalated to the fire. Post-event analysis was difficult due to the complex interconnections and interactions between different plant streams. This complexity was probably also a factor that made the diagnosis of the plant upset very challenging for the operators and may have contributed to causing the accident.Hutchison Boult Pitblado Kenny 2001 309 During the morning of Friday 25 September 1998,It was a particularly cold period in the state of Victoria. It was also a school holiday, when several technical staff members were not on duty. The shift leader that day was a maintenance supervisor with limited experience with facility operations.CCPS 2012 63 a pump supplying heated lean oil to shell-and-tube heat exchanger GP905 in Gas Plant 1 tripped. This was likely due to high level of liquid in one of the process drums, which in turn was caused by excess liquid overflowing from the demethaniser column.Kletz 2001 268 This chain of events was probably initiated by an increase in flow from the Marlin gas field.Kletz 2001 268 A heat exchanger is a vessel that allows the transfer of heat from a hot stream to a cold one. It does not operate at a single temperature, but experiences a range of temperatures throughout the vessel. Temperatures through GP905 normally ranged from 60 to 230 C F. Due to the stoppage in the flow of the heating medium and the continued inflow of cold process fluid on the shell side of the exchanger, parts of GP905 experienced temperatures as low as -48 °C °F 0. Ice from condensed atmospheric humidity formed on the unit shell. The same occurred elsewhere in the plant (for example on heat exchanger GP922), where cryogenic fluid was present which, under normal circumstances, would have been hot. A decision was taken to shut down the entire Gas Plant 1.Hutchison Boult Pitblado Kenny 2001 310 Once the faulty pump was restarted, hot lean oil was pumped into the heat exchanger at 230 °C °F 0. At 12:26 pm the steel of the exchanger outer shell, embrittled due to exposure to temperatures far below its safe design envelope, gave way due to thermal stress. About 10 tonnes of hydrocarbon were immediately vented from the rupture and flashed.Mannan Sam Lees' Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 2012 Butterworth-Heinemann 978-0-12-397212-5 4th 3 Kidlington, England and Waltham, Mass. 2588 M. Sam Mannan A vapour cloud formed and drifted downwind. It ignited 60–90 seconds later,Atherton Gil 2008 168 when it reached a set of fired heaters 170 m ft on away. This caused a deflagration which quickly burnt its way back to the leak source. When the flame front reached the rupture in the heat exchanger, a fierce jet fire developed. There was however no blast wave and the nearby control room was undamaged.Spouge J.R. Hazards XV: The Process, Its Safety and the Environment – Getting It Right! Pitblado R. 2000 Institution of Chemical Engineers 9780852954294 IChemE Symposium Series No. 147 Rugby, England Consequence Modelling of the Hydrocarbon Fire at Longford, Australia, 25 September 1998 16 January 2024 https://www.icheme.org/media/10227/xv-paper-12.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20221221165356/https://www.icheme.org/media/10227/xv-paper-12.pdf 21 December 2022 liveThe effect was termed an explosion by the press. The commission, however, stated: "While the term 'explosion' has been used to characterise the ignition of the initial vapour cloud, the appropriate technical term to describe this ignition is a 'flash fire' or 'deflagration'."Kenney G.D. Boult M. Pitblado R.M. August 2018 Lessons for the Seveso Directive from Longford Australia https://www.icheme.org/media/1971/lpb262_pg12.pdf live Loss Prevention Bulletin 262 12–18 https://web.archive.org/web/20240118001120/https://www.icheme.org/media/1971/lpb262_pg12.pdf 18 January 2024 18 January 2024Dawson Brooks 1999 114 The plant supervisor and a maintenance supervisor were killed in the initial fire.Atherton Gil 2008 168 The jet fire burnt beneath a critical pipe rack section colloquially known to the operators as "King's Cross". In a case of domino effect accident, over a 30-minute period from 13:00 to 13:32, impinging flames led to three other releases of large flammable inventories. A full-blown plant conflagration ensued.Atherton Gil 2008 168Hutchison Boult Pitblado Kenny 2001 313 Aftermath Complete isolation of the pipes feeding the fire required nearly two and a half days, as a result of the interconnections between the three gas plants.Hutchison Boult Pitblado Kenny 2001 313 Consequently, it was not possible to extinguish the fire until 17:30 on 27 September. Many Country Fire Authority brigades were involved in fire-fighting operations.2023 25th Anniversary of the Longford Gas Explosion https://news.cfa.vic.gov.au/news/25th-anniversary-of-the-longford-gas-explosion live https://web.archive.org/web/20231030010744/https://news.cfa.vic.gov.au/news/25th-anniversary-of-the-longford-gas-explosion 30 October 2023 18 January 2024 Country Fire Authority Gas production, however, had been shut down immediately, and the state of Victoria was left without its primary gas supplier. Within days, VENCorp shut down the state's entire gas supply. The resulting gas supply shortage was devastating to Victoria's economy, crippling industry and the commercial sector. 1.4 million households and 89,000 businesses were affected. The hospitality industry, which relied on natural gas for cooking, was heavily damaged. Loss to industry during the crisis was estimated at around A$1.3 billion.Industrial – Longford Gas Explosion https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/industrial-longford-gas-explosion/#:~:text=The%20rupture%20led%20to%20the,and%20eight%20sustained%20serious%20injury. live https://web.archive.org/web/20231025145753/https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/industrial-longford-gas-explosion/#:~:text=The%20rupture%20led%20to%20the,and%20eight%20sustained%20serious%20injury. 25 October 2023 18 January 2024 Australian Disaster Resilience Knowledge Hub As natural gas was also widely used in houses in Victoria for cooking, water heating and home heating, many Victorians endured 20 days without these facilities. Gas supplies to Victoria resumed on 14 October. Many Victorians were outraged and upset to discover only minor compensation on their next gas bill, with the average compensation figure being only around $10. Longford Royal Commission A royal commission was called on 12 October 1998, headed by former High Court judge Daryl Dawson. This was the first time a royal commission was called for an industrial accident in the state of Victoria since the collapse of the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne in 1970.Conlin Helen Hazards XVIII: Process Safety – Sharing Best Practice O'Meara John 2004 Institution of Chemical Engineers 9780852954607 IChemE Symposium Series No. 150 Rugby, England 846–864 Assessing Longford Gas Plant 1 Staffing Arrangements 15 January 2024 https://www.icheme.org/media/9943/xviii-paper-60.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20240115025134/https://www.icheme.org/media/9943/xviii-paper-60.pdf 15 January 2024 live The Longford Royal Commission sat for 53 days, commencing with a preliminary hearing on 12 November 1998 and concluding with a closing address by Counsel Assisting the Royal Commission on 15 April 1999. Dawson Brooks 1999 247–248 Esso blamed the accident on plant operators' negligence, even producing the training records of one particular operator in an attempt to show he should have known how to manage the plant upset.Hopkins Andrew Occupational Health & Safety Management Systems: Proceedings of the First National Conference 2001 Crown Content 1-86350-374-9 Pearse Warwick Melbourne, Vic. 41–51 Lessons from Esso's Gas Plant Explosion at Longford Gallagher Clare Bluff Liz The findings of the Longford Royal Commission, however, focused on Esso's safety practices rather than on actions by individual operators: The causes of the accident on 25 September 1998 amounted to a failure to provide and maintain so far as practicable a working environment that was safe and without risks to health. This constituted a breach or breaches of section 21 of the [Victorian] Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985.Dawson Brooks 1999 238 In process safety The Longford Royal Commission's findings became key lessons learned in the domain of process safety.Kletz 2001Atherton Gil 2008 Andrew Hopkins, who was an expert witness at the royal commission,Emeritus Professor Andrew Hopkins https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/emeritus-professor-andrew-hopkins live https://web.archive.org/web/20240115233824/https://iceds.anu.edu.au/people/academics/emeritus-professor-andrew-hopkins 15 January 2024 16 January 2024 Australian National University based his 2000 book on Lessons from Longford on the results of the commission.Hopkins 2000 Points of interest and lessons learned from Longford include aspects such as: Design of the plant, in particular in relation to isolation of hazardous inventories, an aspect that exacerbated the fire escalation.Dawson Brooks 1999 235Hopkins 2000 chapter 3 Training of personnel and operating procedures, which were inadequate for dealing with a hazardous process, especially in regards to significant plant upsets, like the loss of lean oil circulation.Dawson Brooks 1999 236Hopkins 2000 chapters 2 and 3 Excessive alarm and warning systems, which caused workers to become desensitised to possible hazardous occurrences.Hopkins 2000 chapter 4 Poor communication between shifts, which meant that the pump shutdown was not properly communicated to the following shift.Hopkins 2000 chapter 5Poor shift handover was also a major contributor to the disasters of Piper Alpha, Texas City and Buncefield.Reid Marc 2020 The Piper Alpha Disaster: A Personal Perspective with Transferrable Lessons on the Long-Term Moral Impact of Safety Failures ACS Chemical Health & Safety 27 2 88–95 10.1021/acs.chas.9b00022 freeCCPS Human Factors Handbook for Process Plant Operations April 2022 American Institute of Chemical Engineers and John Wiley & Sons 978-1-119-64049-3 New York, N.Y. and Hoboken, N.J. 124, 241 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Certain managerial shortcomings were also identified: The company had neglected to commission a hazard and operability analysis (HAZOP) of the system affected, which would almost certainly have highlighted the risk of tank rupture caused by sudden temperature change.Dawson Brooks 1999 235, 237Hopkins 2000 chapter 3 Esso's two-tiered reporting system (from operators to supervisors to management) meant that certain warning signs such as a previous similar incident (on 28 August) were not reported to the appropriate parties.Dawson Brooks 1999 238Hopkins 2000 chapter 5 The relocation of plant engineers to Melbourne had reduced the quality of supervision at the plant.Dawson Brooks 1999 236 It has been argued that Esso's safety culture was too focused on lost-time incidents of an eminently occupational safety nature and was less concerned about safe plant maintenance and operations, an attitude that may ultimately have led to the major fire.Hopkins 2000 chapter 6 The relocation of key engineers to the Melbourne office without a proper risk assessment has been indicated as a failure to carry out proper organizational management of change, a fundamental element of process safety management.Energy Institute Managing Major Accident Hazard Risks (People, Plant and Environment) During Organisational Change March 2020 Energy Institute 978-1-78725-082-6 London, England 17–18Hopkins 2000 chapter 3 Another aspect that may have warranted a formal change management process was the increase in heavy gas components in the feed from the offshore gas fields. While it is normal for fields like those feeding the Longford gas plants to yield heavier gas in later lifecycle phases, the creeping change should have been nonetheless assessed, and procedural or design provisions put in place accordingly. Instead, plant operators were obliged to manage the increase in condensate liquids reactively and working with what facilities they already had available.CCPS Process Safety in Upstream Oil and Gas 2021 American Institute of Chemical Engineers & John Wiley & Sons 9781119620044 New York, N.Y. and Hoboken, N.J. 42 American Institute of Chemical EngineersHopkins 2000 chapter 3 Other elements of process safety management that failed at Longford include leadership and culture, process safety information, hazard identification and risk analysis, operating procedures, training, incident investigation, and emergency preparedness, despite Esso "Operations Integrity Management System" nominally meeting process safety management requirements.CCPS Guidelines for Investigating Chemical Process Incidents American Institute of Chemical Engineers 2003 0-8169-0897-4 2nd New York, N.Y. 340 American Institute of Chemical EngineersCCPS 2012 10 Legal ramifications Esso was taken to the Supreme Court of Victoria by the Victorian WorkCover Authority. The jury found the company guilty of eleven breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985, and Justice Philip Cummins imposed a record fine of A$2 million in July 2001.Wheelwright Karen 2002 Corporate Liability for Workplace Deaths and Injuries: Reflecting on Victoria's Laws in the Light of the Esso Longford Explosion https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/DeakinLawRw/2002/16.html live Deakin Law Review 7 2 323–347 https://web.archive.org/web/20180322142432/http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/DeakinLawRw/2002/16.html 22 March 2018 15 January 202420 July 2001 Esso Fined Over Fatal Gas Plant Explosion https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/jul/30/oil live https://web.archive.org/web/20130825092718/https://www.theguardian.com/business/2001/jul/30/oil 25 August 2013 18 January 2024 The Guardianhttp://www.workcover.vic.gov.au/dir090/vwa/home.nsf/pages/Longford/%24File/Esso_fines.pdf Particulars of Sentence Supreme Court, State of Victoria 2001 Supreme Court of Victoria https://web.archive.org/web/20050718170612/http://www.workcover.vic.gov.au/dir090/vwa/home.nsf/pages/Longford/$File/Esso_fines.pdf 18 July 2005 dead In addition, a class action was taken on behalf of businesses, industries and domestic users who were financially affected by the gas crisis. The class action went to trial in the Supreme Court on 4 September 2002, and was eventually settled in December 2004 when Esso was ordered to pay A$32 million to businesses which suffered property damage as a result of the incident.AAP Australian Associated Press 9 November 2004 $32m Gas Blast Compo for Business https://www.theage.com.au/national/32m-gas-blast-compo-for-business-20041109-gdyyfi.html live https://web.archive.org/web/20240118020027/https://www.theage.com.au/national/32m-gas-blast-compo-for-business-20041109-gdyyfi.html 18 January 2024 18 January 2024 The Age Following the Longford accident, Victoria introduced the Major Hazard Facilities Regulations to regulate safety at plants that present major process hazards (revoked in 2007).Statutory rule No. 50/2000 7 January 2000 Victoria Occupational Health and Safety (Major Hazard Facilities) Regulations 2000 https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/repealed-revoked/statutory-rules/occupational-health-and-safety-major-hazard-facilities-regulations/010 Revoked in the S.R. No. 54/2007 7 January 2007 Victoria Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2007 https://www.legislation.vic.gov.au/repealed-revoked/statutory-rules/occupational-health-and-safety-regulations-2007/020 The regulations imposed a non-prescriptive regime on facility operators, requiring them to demonstrate control of major hazards via the use of a safety management system and a safety case. As a result, about fifty major-hazard facilities had to develop and submit a safety case by 30 June 2002 to the regulator WorkSafe, a division of the Victorian Workcover Authority.Cooke Geoff Hazards XVII: Process Safety – Fulfilling Our Responsibilities Sheers Rob 2003 Institution of Chemical Engineers 978-0852954591 IChemE Symposium Series No. 149 Rugby, England 605–617 Safety Case Implementation – An Australian Regulator's Experience 15 January 2024 https://www.icheme.org/media/10062/xvii-paper-47.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20240115025517/https://www.icheme.org/media/10062/xvii-paper-47.pdf 15 January 2024 live Other Australian states have also implemented similar regulatory regimes.Glavan Corina Palaneeswaran Ekambaram 20 May 2012 The Price and Complications of Safety Compliance – An Australian Perspective https://www.aidic.it/cet/12/26/072.pdf live Chemical Engineering Transactions 26 429–434 10.3303/CET1226072 978-88-95608-17-4 1974-9791 https://web.archive.org/web/20210605035113/https://www.aidic.it/cet/12/26/072.pdf 5 June 2021 15 January 2024 free See also 1989 Phillips disaster 2005 Texas City refinery explosion 2009 Cataño oil refinery fire Notes References Bibliography Atherton John Incidents That Define Process Safety Gil Frederic 2008 Center for Chemical Process Safety of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and John Wiley & Sons New York, N.Y. and Hoboken, N.J. 167–174 Esso Longford Gas Plant Explosion – Australia, September 25, 1998 CCPS Recognizing Catastrophic Incident Warning Signs in the Process Industries 2012 John Wiley & Sons 978-0-470-76774-0 Hoboken, N.J. American Institute of Chemical Engineers Dawson Daryl Michael https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1998-99No61.pdf The Esso Longford Gas Plant Accident: Report of the Longford Royal Commission Brooks Brian John June 1999 Government Printer for the State of Victoria Melbourne, Vic Daryl Dawson https://web.archive.org/web/20221111015445/https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1998-99No61.pdf 11 November 2022 dead Hopkins Andrew Lessons from Longford: The Esso Gas Plant Explosion 2000 CCH Australia 978-1864684223 Macquarie Park, NSW Hutchison R.B. Loss Prevention and Safety Promotion in the Process Industries: Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium, 19–21 June 2001, Stockholm, Sweden Boult D.M. Pitblado R.M. Kenny G.D. 2001 Elsevier Science 0-444-50699-3 Pasman H.J. 1 Amsterdam, The Netherlands 307–320 Lessons from the Longford Gas Explosion and Fire Fredholm O. Jacobsson A. Kletz Trevor Learning from Accidents 2001 Gulf Professional Publishing 3rd Oxford, England and Woburn, Mass. 267–274 Longford: The Hazards of Following Fashions Trevor Kletz Further reading Hopkins Andrew https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/e168df6c-db07-462b-a7ab-59a7b1fc82c8/language-en Risk Management and Human Reliability in Social Context: Proceedings of the 18th ESReDA Seminar Hosted by Karlstad University Universitetsforum, Karlstad, Sweden. June 15–16, 2000 2001 Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 92-828-6738-2 Svedung Inge EUR 20141 EN Luxembourg, Luxembourg 77–86 An AcciMap of the Esso Australia Gas Plant Explosion 12 January 2024 Cojazzi Giacomo G.M. https://web.archive.org/web/20240112030343/https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/e168df6c-db07-462b-a7ab-59a7b1fc82c8/language-en 12 January 2024 Johnstone Graeme http://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/CA256902000FE154/Lookup/Coronial_Findings_of_Importance/$file/LONGFORD.pdf 'Longford': Inquest into the Deaths of Peter Brubeck Wilson and John Francis Lowery and the Fire at Longford Gas Plant Number 1 – Findings 15 November 2002 Coroners Court of Victoria Case No. 2907/98 Southbank, Vic 223641164 https://web.archive.org/web/20070622023036/http://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/CA256902000FE154/Lookup/Coronial_Findings_of_Importance/$file/LONGFORD.pdf 22 June 2007 dead Lee Ramsina Workers' Inferno: The Untold Story of the Esso Workers 20 Years After the Explosion 2018 Significance Publishing 978-0-6483100-2-0 Neutral Bay, NSW Nicol James Have Australia's Major Hazard Facilities Learnt from the Longford Disaster? December 2001 Institution of Engineers, Australia 085825-738-6 Barton, ACT 223183631 Weiss Bob August 2018 Lessons from Longford – 20 Years On https://www.icheme.org/media/1973/lpb262_pg04.pdf live Loss Prevention Bulletin 262 4–8 https://web.archive.org/web/20240119014724/https://www.icheme.org/media/1973/lpb262_pg04.pdf 19 January 2024 19 January 2024 External links http://www.cheresources.com/esso.pdf live https://web.archive.org/web/20230531221759/http://www.cheresources.com/esso.pdf Impact of the Esso Verdicts on Engineering Practice 31 May 2023 12 January 2024 Cheresources.com John O'Meara March 2001 Category:September 1998 in Australia Category:1998 industrial disasters Category:1998 disasters in Australia Category:Disasters in Victoria (state) Category:1990s in Victoria (state) Category:Victoria (state) royal commissions Category:Industrial fires and explosions in Australia Category:Energy crises in Australia Category:Energy in Victoria (state) Category:Shire of Wellington Category:ExxonMobil history