The awful attack on the Taji Gas Plant 20 kilometres north of Baghdad is a reminder of the vulnerability of hydrocarbon facilities in a country engulfed in violence since the invasion and occupation of 2003. The attack, attributed to Daesh, happened at dawn on May 15.

It was set off by a car bomb at the gates and with attackers rushing to the storage tank area, which is most vital for the plant in its current operations.

Soon, three spherical storage tanks were involved in fires that reportedly started when the attackers detonated their explosive belts. The technical details are so scant that it is difficult to make judgement on exactly what happened. From footage shown, the fire at the bottom of the tanks may be the result of explosions that destroyed the piping system and lit the rushing liquid petroleum gas (LPG).

But this does not explain the fires at the top of the storage tanks, which are home to the safety relieve valves protecting the tanks. The footage also shows the explosion of one tank and the collapse of a second due to the fire affecting its supporting structure. A detailed technical report is needed to make a proper judgement about what happened.

But considering what is available, it may be said the damages are far less than what might have happened. Perhaps there was not much LPG in the storage tanks that contributed to the relatively speedy control of the fire. The casualties are reported to be 14 killed and 24 injured. In a similar incident in France involving a single tank, 64 people were killed.

The Taji Gas Plant was built in the mid-1960s and used to receive raw natural gas liquids from a natural gas plant in Kirkuk to be processed for the extraction of LPG, the household fuel of choice. The plant also houses the city’s natural gas station at the end of a transmission pipeline and then distributes it to power plants and other industrial consumers.

However, since 1983, processing stopped in Taji and the plant became strictly a storage depot receiving LPG processed in the newly-built North Gas Plant in Kirkuk. But it remained the major LPG storage plant in the Baghdad area that fills 30,000 cylinders a day and load tankers delivering LPG to other filling plants. Currently it receives LPG from either Daura refinery or the South Gas Plant in Basra.

It seems the attackers knew that the processing plant was idle and left it alone and concentrated their devious attack on the storage tanks.

The attack also caused the shutdown of two gas turbine driven power plants and the loss of 153MW from an already starved network. But it is not clear why this happened, especially with the exchange of accusations between the ministries of oil and electricity. The dry natural gas and LPG systems are separate, unless the gas cut off was temporarily made as a precaution.

The Taji operators returned the plant to its function of filling cylinders within three days of the attack, perhaps by utilising the remaining tanks and the unharmed cylinder filling lines.

Iraq used to import LPG to the tune of more than 1,000 tonnes a day for a long time since 2003. However due to the increased production in the South Gas Plant, imports are now running at about 200 tonnes a day. The Baiji refinery — heavily damaged by the battle between the government forces and Daesh — was capable of producing more than 1,000 tonnes a day of LPG.

But there are always shortages of LPG and pent up demand, which forces families to resort to burning kerosene in their kitchens.

No matter how much security is increased, hydrocarbon plants remain vulnerable due to the fuel they contain and the easiness in igniting or exploding it. The bolstering of safety and fire protection personnel is absolutely important and they should be trained to the highest possible level.

The Taji Gas plant and Daura refinery were schools and training grounds for many engineers and professionals of the Iraqi downstream industry. I am proud to have been a graduate of both facilities and it must hurt many of us to see the plants that were built by the sweat of many go up in smoke.

A national and patriotic solution is needed to see an end to the political crisis in Iraq brought about by the occupation and he failed governments as a result before any security solution can work properly to save the interests of all Iraqis.