Damage to petrochemical facilities during earthquakes

Petrochemical facilities suffered great damage during earthquakes due to the strong ground shaking and extensive uncontrolled fires caused by the earthquakes. The 1999 Kocaeli (Turkey), 1964 Niigata (Japan), and 1964 Alaska earthquakes caused significant damage to petrochemical facilities. Tupras oil refinery, which was designed and constructed in 1961 according to the US standards of that time, suffered significant damage after the Kocaeli earthquake. A discussion covers information about the damage observed and the consequences of the damage in the Tupras refinery; and recommendations for the oil refineries located at the west coast of the US. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AIChE Spring National Meeting (Houston, TX 4/22-27/2007).