A planned emergency exercise will take place on ORLEN Unipetrol Group’s production premises in Záluží near Litvínov on Tuesday, 18 October 2022, from 9 am to 11 am. Traffic on adjacent roads will be temporarily restricted during the exercise. In addition, people will hear warning signals from the site, and partial evacuation will take place. The drill aims to verify the effectiveness of the ORLEN Unipetrol Group’s internal emergency plan.
“We conduct an emergency exercise every year even though the law imposes this duty once in three years. Security of our site is, of course, a crucial topic for us. Therefore, this drill will check our emergency plan’s effectiveness, up-to-datedness of our operational and safety documentation, and cooperation of all rescue units dealing with an emergency. This year’s exercise will focus on simulating a hydrogen sulphide leak and creating a toxic cloud that will start spreading eastwards,” says Maciej Romanów, a member of the ORLEN Unipetrol Group’s Board of Directors responsible for managing the health protection and procedural safety, the environment, and investment projects.
The emergency exercise activities will also include rescuing an injured operational employee moving near the reactor affected by toxic effects. The action leader will decide on the rescue. People working in the affected production section will be evacuated, and only the necessary number of employees ensuring the operations will remain on the spot.
In cooperation with the Police of the Czech Republic, the emergency training will include tests of the warning and notification system when traffic on Road I/27 (between Most and Litvínov), Road III/0272 (towards Komořany), and Road III/2541 (towards Horní Jiřetín) will be temporarily suspended.
The ORLEN Unipetrol Group is the largest refining and petrochemical company in the Czech Republic. It focuses on crude oil processing and the production, distribution and sale of vehicle fuels and petrochemical products – particularly plastics and fertilisers. It belongs among the critical players in the Czech and Central European markets in all these areas. The ORLEN Unipetrol Group encompasses refineries and production plants in Litvínov and Kralupy nad Vltavou, Paramo in Pardubice, Spolana Neratovice, and two research centres in Litvínov and Brno. Unipetrol also includes a network of ORLEN Benzina filling stations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. With 427 filling stations, ORLEN Benzina is the largest chain in the Czech Republic. Since its entry in 2019 to Slovakia, ORLEN Benzina has been one of the fastest-growing chains and currently has 24 stations in its network. ORLEN Unipetrol employs almost 5,000 people and is one of the largest companies in the Czech Republic. In 2005, ORLEN Unipetrol became a member of the ORLEN Group, the largest crude oil processor in Central Europe. The ORLEN Unipetrol is also active in corporate social responsibility. Therefore, it pays equal attention to initiatives that cultivate and support sustainable development, education, local communities, and the environment.