News
Published: 01 April, 2006
An explosion and fire occurred in a building preparing chemicals for the production of penicillin at the same plant in 1999. The company was fined £20,000 after that incident.
International News:
China - March 1st, 2006:Chinese police have vowed to clamp down on pipeline oil theft, even threatening to impose the death penalty because of the dangers involved.
The authorities say that oil theft costs the industry more than 1bn yuan (US$124.6m or £71.8m) and led to 2,877 arrests. Many cases were so serious they had "wrecked" production facilities, senior police officials told reporters.
"Criminal punishments will be meted out, including the death penalty," said Ma Weiya, vice director of the police social security management department.
One popular - and highly dangerous - method used to steal oil involves thieves building a hut and then drilling into oil pipes beneath the building. China already has almost 30,000 kilometres of pipelines, which will be extended in the near future.
Pakistan – February 16th, 2006: A gas pipeline has been blown up in Pirkoh in Pakistan's troubled southern province of Balochistan.
Tribal militants in Balochistan, the source of Pakistan's main gas reserves, are demanding greater control over natural resources. The explosion damaged a pipe connecting a well to a gas compression plant in Pirkoh.
Two gas plants that produce around 60 million cubic feet of gas daily had to be shut down after the explosion. In early February tribesmen are known to have blown up a gas pipeline in the district of Dera Bugti in Balochistan.
France – March 24th, 2006: A huge explosion ripped through a chemistry institute in Mulhouse, eastern France, killing one person and injuring another. The epicentre was a ground-floor laboratory in the School of Chemistry, part of a 25-hectare campus near the city centre.
Vietnam – March 7th, 2006: Eight miners were burned to death in a methane gas explosion at a coal mine in Quang Ninh province, 190km (120 miles) east of Hanoi. Rescuers recovered the bodies after a five-hour search on Monday.
The miners on were only 15 minutes into their shift at the Thong Nhat Coal Mine Company. Quang Ninh is the country's main coal-producing region. Coal exports earned Vietnam a record $658m (£376m) last year, with China and Japan the main destinations.
Bangladesh – February 24th, 2006: More than 50 people have been killed and about 100 injured in a fire at a textile mill in the south-eastern port city of Chittagong. At least 500 workers were inside the mill when the fire broke out. Officials are trying to establish the cause.
Mexico – 15th March, 2006: the fortune’s of the world’s offshore oil industry is likely to be re-energised by the discovery of a 'huge' oil field in the Gulf of Mexico. A new deep-water oil field has been found to contain 10bn barrels of crude, making it bigger than the region’s largest oil field, Cantarell.
The oil is under 930 metres (0.6 miles) of water and a further 4,000 metres (2.5 miles) underground.
The first well, known as Noxal 1, is located about 100km (60 miles) from the port of Coatzacoalcos on the coast of Veracruz state.
Mexico is Latin America's largest oil producer ahead of Venezuela and Brazil with an output of 3.4m barrels per day. Half of the production is exported, mainly to the US.
