Explosion at Nobel Chemicals in Karlskoga Sweden

摘要

Nobel Chemicals was at the time of the accident I am going to describe a part of the Business Area Pharma Chemicals within Nobel Industries. The business included development, production and marketing of substances to the pharma industry and organic fine chemicals to certain other industries. More than 90% of the produced volume was exported. The business had grown out of the explosives business operated at the industrial area since the beginning of the century. The technology base was built upon the chemical properties of nitric acid (Nitration and oxidation). At the time of the accident the business was operated in two divisions, the Pharma Chemicals Division and the Fine Chemicals Division. Each division was manned with necessary resources to run the business. Thus there were two production departments one for each division. This fact is important to remember in the following description.