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Explosion, major fire at HPCL's Visakhapatnam refinery; police say confined to one tank, no casualties
A blast and large fire broke out at HPCL's refinery in Gajuwaka, Visakhapatnam, late on 2 November. Police say it is confined to the affected tank, smoke is not hazardous and no casualties are reported. Reports differ on whether a sulphur pitch tank or the residue upgradation unit was hit.
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A powerful explosion followed by a large fire hit the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited's refinery in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, late on Monday night, 2 November. Visakhapatnam Police Commissioner Shankhabrata Bagchi confirmed the fire and said that no casualties had been reported. He said the blaze was confined to the affected tank and posed no threat to the refinery's other operational units. The cause of the blast is not known, and the reports say details will follow an investigation. The fire broke out in the Gajuwaka industrial area, on the same night that the state was bracing for the landfall of Cyclone Murasu, although none of the reports links the two events.
What happened at the refinery
The reports differ on which part of the refinery was hit. One report says officials told it the fire started at the Residue Upgradation Facility, a unit that converts heavy residual oil into higher-value fuels. Another, citing preliminary information, names a sulphur pitch tank inside the facility. A third report does not identify the section but says refinery management cut power to the affected section as a precaution. The police commissioner's own description, that the fire was confined to the affected tank, fits the second account, but he did not name the unit in the statements reported.
HPCL's in-house firefighters and fire engines from other parts of Visakhapatnam were sent to the site, and police were deployed to stop the public from approaching. Firefighting continued late into the night. One report describes the blaze as contained, while the text of the same report describes operations as ongoing, so it is not clear from the coverage when the fire was fully extinguished. Refinery staff were reportedly moved to safer locations, and residents of nearby areas ran out of their homes when flames and thick black smoke became visible. An HPCL employee told a reporter that people had heard sounds of an explosion in the area before the fire spread. Authorities said that the smoke spreading over the surrounding areas was unlikely to be hazardous. Videos and photographs of the flames and smoke circulated widely on social media through the night.
The refinery and its recent expansion
The Visakhapatnam refinery is one of HPCL's two refineries, the other being in Mumbai. It began operating in 1957 under the oil company Caltex, was nationalised in 1976 and was merged into HPCL in 1978. Its capacity grew in stages, from 4.5 million tonnes a year in 1985 to 7.5 million tonnes in 1999 and 8.3 million tonnes in 2010.
The refinery has recently been through a large expansion. The Visakh Refinery Modernisation Project, costing Rs 31,407 crore, raises its capacity from 8.3 to 15 million tonnes a year and is designed to convert about 93% of residual oils into higher-value products. Its centrepiece is a 3.55 million tonne residue upgradation unit, which HPCL commissioned in January 2026 and which it described as the first of its kind in the world using a particular hydrocracking technology. HPCL has also said that the refinery processed its highest ever annual crude throughput, 16.04 million tonnes, in the last financial year. That makes Visakhapatnam a significant part of the company's refining output and of fuel supply along India's eastern coast.
The state government's emergency machinery was already stretched that night. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had put officials on high alert for the cyclone, and Home Minister Vangalapudi Anitha had told all departments to stay in touch with the field, so the fire arrived while control rooms were working round the clock for the storm.
The reports do not say whether the unit commissioned in January was involved in Monday's fire. They also do not say whether the fire has affected the refinery's crude processing or the supply of products to HPCL's retail network.
What is not known
Several basic questions remain unanswered in the coverage reviewed. HPCL has not issued a statement that was quoted in any of the reports, and the only company-related remarks come from an unnamed employee. The reports give no figure for the number of workers on shift, no confirmation that all staff have been accounted for beyond the statement that there are no casualties, and no information on whether any part of the refinery has been shut down. They also do not describe what was stored in the tank or whether any of its contents burned.
In India, an industrial fire of this kind is normally followed by an internal inquiry by the operator and scrutiny by the state's factories department and the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, which regulates the storage of petroleum products. Whether such inquiries have been ordered in this case has not been reported. A separate explosion at another refinery in Karnataka in September, which killed one person, was mentioned in one report, but it is unrelated to this incident.
For now the only firm facts are the time, the place, the police commissioner's statement that the fire was confined to one tank, and the absence of reported casualties. As the cyclone moves through Andhra Pradesh and the state's emergency teams are stretched, the refinery fire is a second emergency for the district administration, and further details are expected as the investigation gets under way.
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