Beirut Explosion Raises Concerns Over Newcastle Chemical Stockpile

As Lebanon reels from a deadly blast that killed over 100 people in Beirut, there are fresh calls for a Newcastle stockpile, which stores approximately four times the amount of ammonium nitrate, to be relocated to a safer location.

Orica has 6000 to 12,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored at its Kooragang Island plant in the Port of Newcastle. This location sits only 800 metres from residents in North Stockton and 3km from Newcastle’s CBD.

“It’s a totally inappropriate place to have such a dangerous material produced and stored, and it’s something we’ve been complaining about for many, many years,” Keith Craig, a long-time vocal opponent of the Orica plant told the ABC.

“Many people would be killed and injured if we had an accident at Orica.”

In a statement, Orica said all its practices are carried out in accordance with all regulatory requirements including the Australian Dangerous Goods Code, Australian Standards and the Explosives Act.

Kooragang Island manufacturing centre manager Paul Hastie said the site had never experienced an incident involving ammonium nitrate.

“In addition, Orica Kooragang Island holds a major hazard facility licence. In order for this licence to be obtained the site’s safety management systems, security arrangements and emergency response procedures undergo a strict auditing and verification process by SafeWork NSW.”

“Ammonium nitrate storage areas are fire resistant and built exclusively from non-flammable materials. There are no flammable sources within designated exclusion zones around these areas.”

However, professor Priyan Mendis, an explosion expert from the University of Melbourne, told that ABC that while he believes the risk of an explosion at the Newcastle plant is low, there remains a real risk that must be addressed.

“I can understand the concerns of the residents in Newcastle, of course there is a risk.”

“The ammonium nitrate has to be triggered, something like a fire has to happen. But given the scale of the event in Lebanon I think Orica needs to review things and reassess what would happen here.”

Explosives expert Tony Richards, who has previously designed blasting operations for Orica and BHP went further, suggesting to Fairfax that if there was an explosion at the Kooragang Island plant, Newcastle would cease to exist.

”It doesn’t matter how small the risk is, the consequences are catastrophic when you are dealing with something that can turn solid iron mountains into mounds of rubble.”

“If that went off, people in Sydney would say ‘what the hell was that?’ And the answer would be: ‘it used to be Newcastle’.”