Total stands accused over worker death

Tuesday's blast at the oil giant's Lindsey refinery near Immingham on Humberside also injured two engineers.

The company had to evacuate more than 2,000 workers and close down the plant as scores of firefighters battled the blaze.

Rescue workers said the worker had been killed after the fire ignited crude oil that was being processed into highly flammable jet fuel.

Fitter Martin Clark, working with other engineers only 200 yards from the incident, said: "There was no big explosion - I didn't hear anything go - but you could see the fire and feel the heat coming off it, so I started running and about five minutes afterwards there was an explosion."

Total executives admitted that the Health and Safety Executive and the police had already launched investigations into the firm's safety rules at the plant, which was rocked last year by strike action after bosses tried to use contract workers to undercut national union agreements.

But GMB engineering construction national organiser Phil Whitehurst lost no time in demanding that Total bosses be held to account for the latest workplace fatality in the industry.

The blast called into question the oil corporation's safety record, Mr Whitehurst claimed.

The Lindsey fire followed Total's admission that the firm broke health and safety rules when a catastrophic explosion rocked the Buncefield oil depot in Hertfordshire in 2005.

"This latest fire started in a heater where the oil is heated to a colossal temperature and was adjacent to where the workforce at the plant go to work," Mr Whitehurst stressed.

"Total has just been fined heavily after the Buncefield explosion and now they have another one at Lindsey, which brings into question Total's safety record yet again.

"They have to be held accountable," he insisted.

The High Court ruled last year that Total was liable for damages caused by the Buncefield explosion which injured more than 40 people after leaking petrol tanks ignited in an explosion that registered 2.4 on the Richter scale.