ESSO fined £70K after blast kills two

Oil giant Esso was fined Aus$2m (£700,000) today for safety violations at a natural gas plant which caused an explosion that killed two workers.

Victorian Supreme Court judge Justice Philip Cummins said the company displayed a lamentable failure to accept responsibility for the events of September 25, 1998.

Cummins imposed the fine after the company was convicted in June of 11 charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The explosion at the Longford natural gas processing plant was not an accident and sole responsibility lay with Esso, said the judge, describing the consequences as ‘‘grievous and tragic’’.

The fire and explosion at the plant killed two Esso workers, injured eight others, and cut natural gas supplies to most of Victoria state for two weeks.

During the three-and-a-half month trial, the jury heard that workers at the plant were ‘‘sitting on a bomb.’’

Esso chairman Robert Olsen said the company was disappointed by the fine, but did not say if it would be appealed. He said Esso deeply regretted the incident.

‘‘Esso did not and does not blame anyone for this accident, any employees or any groups of employees,’’ he told reporters.

Esso’s conviction opens the way for a class action suit from people affected by the natural gas outage that lawyers estimate could be worth Aus1.3bn (£460m).