An explosion and fire at South Korea's Buseung Chemicals temporarily halted construction work on S-Oil Corp.'s Shaheen petrochemicals project at Onsan, company officials said Oct. 11.
The incident occurred at 9:41 am at Buseung Chemicals on South Korea's southeastern coast and was fully extinguished by 1:50 pm, according to the Ulsan Fire Headquarters. There were no injuries.
The blaze prompted 12 Buseung employees and about 7,000 workers at a nearby construction site to evacuate. The fire is believed to have started while toluene, a flammable material, was being transferred into drums, and it subsequently spread to storage tanks containing acetone and ethanol. Police and fire authorities said they will investigate the precise cause.
S-Oil, whose refining and petrochemicals complexes are located at Onsan, said it sustained no major damage and that construction on its petrochemicals project was temporarily suspended as a precaution. S-Oil is developing the complex as part of its Shaheen project, with trial operations scheduled to begin in late 2026.
