Tank fire at Holly Corp. Navajo refinery kills two workers

ARTESIA, N.M. - A fire late on March 2 at an asphalt tank under construction at Holly Corp.’s Navajo oil refinery here killed two workers, a local police spokesman said.
Two contractors working at the tank died and two were transported to a hospital in Lubbock, Texas for treatment, said Sergeant Lindell Smith of the Artesia, N.M., police department, where the Navajo plant is located.
Holly, the owner of refineries and pipelines in the U.S. Southwest, in a statement on PRNewswire earlier, had said the fire at the asphalt storage tank under construction “likely” killed a worker. The blaze occurred at about 12:40 p.m. local time and was extinguished in about 90 minutes by the refinery’s fire-fighting units.
There was no impact to the operations of the 100,000 b/d plant.
The workers were employed by an independent contractor building the new tank, the statement said.