The non-working factory has no guards, and equipment thefts are constantly occurring there.
The explosion and fire at the idle Odessa non-oil refinery was caused by cable thieves who broke a 110 kilovolt power cable.
The former head of the trade union of the enterprise, who worked at the plant for 25 years, Oleksandr Cheganenko, told the Odessa.online correspondent about this. According to him, there has been no security at the refinery since March 2019, and since that time thieves have been constantly operating there, who have already stolen 85 percent of all electrical equipment.
“Theft is carried out on a large scale, professionally, thieves work as a professional tool, they do not do it with a hacksaw. A huge amount of cables are being cut. By and large, only the operating power cables remained at the enterprise. At the main distribution substation, which burned out, a 110 kilovolt network comes in. If someone tells you that it happened by accident, this is not true. All that was stolen is estimated at millions of dollars, given how much non-ferrous metal costs. These are not cables in the apartment. If there is a 6 kilovolt cable, then in one meter it is 64 kilograms, ”Cheganenko said.
The ex-head of the refinery trade union lives in a village near Shkodova Gora not far from the refinery. He said that the explosion was very powerful.
“The explosion was such that at first I thought that some plane had crashed. At five minutes past twelve, the light went out first, apparently, first the 6 kilovolt cell, which feeds the village on Shkodovaya Gora, was turned off, and then they climbed to disassemble the cell, but hit the 110 kilovolt power cable, ”added Cheganenko.
On the fact of the explosion and fire at the refinery, the police opened criminal proceedings under Art. 270 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Violation of fire safety requirements established by law). Law enforcement officers did not find traces of penetration into the substation.
Recall that on the territory of the idle Odessa oil refinery on August 28 at the beginning of the first night a powerful explosion thundered with a flash and subsequent combustion.
