Mobil Oil Corp

Hundreds of oil refinery workers went on strike at a Mobil Oil Corp. facility in Torrance late Wednesday night, union officials said. More than a dozen pickets emerged at the Torrance refinery at 10 p.m., complaining that the company was attempting to exclude certain classes of workers from its contract.

A fiery explosion at a Torrance refinery last month apparently occurred when a gap in a pipe allowed flammable gases to escape into the air, Torrance fire investigators said Tuesday. The gases were ignited, probably by a nearby heating unit, leading to the Oct. 19 explosion at the Mobil Oil Corp. refinery that injured 28 workers, according to the report from the Torrance Fire Department. Investigators did not blame any individual or procedure for the accident.

Mobil Oil Corp. agreed on Thursday to pay $950,000 to settle allegations that the company violated the Clean Air Act, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The fine was the largest penalty levied by the EPA for violations of the Clean Air Act in California. The EPA had charged that the Mobil polystyrene foam plant in Bakersfield exceeded limits on emissions of volatile organic compounds from 1983 to 1985.

State health officials are proposing a $66,000 fine against Mobil Oil Corp. for violations of hazardous waste disposal laws at its Torrance refinery. Mobil has not decided whether to accept the penalty or contest it, a company spokesman said. Inspectors in November found that the company had not disposed of a five-inch blanket of caustic soda that was eating through a concrete pad. In addition, a pipe was leaking the caustic material onto the ground.

Mobil Oil Corp. and Irwin Industries Inc. of Long Beach have been charged with one criminal violation each of state safety code in connection with a flash fire at the oil company's Torrance refinery that severely burned one worker and injured another exactly one year ago. The charges were filed at 5 p.m. Friday, the last possible moment to beat a statute-of-limitations deadline for misdemeanor cases.

Culver City has put off for another week a decision on whether to allow Mobil Oil Corp. to run a pipeline through the city. Mobil Oil is replacing a 92-mile pipeline stretching from oil fields in Kern County to its refinery in Torrance. The 16-inch diameter pipeline will carry an average of 95,000 gallons of crude oil a day, a 50% increase over the old pipeline. Culver City is the last municipality to stand in the path of the $88-million project.

State water officials say a huge plume of gasoline from the Mobil Oil Corp. refinery in Torrance has contaminated ground water at least 1,200 feet from the refinery grounds, and they have tentatively ordered the company to begin a massive cleanup.

In a deal that city officials hope will bring nearly two years of water pollution problems to a close, the City Council announced Tuesday that an oil company has agreed to clean up two of the city's contaminated drinking water wells. Seven of Santa Monica's 11 wells have been shut down in the past two years because the potentially toxic chemical MTBE is suspected to have leaked from gasoline storage tanks into the ground water at two city-owned well fields.

The city of Torrance was awarded a $2.3-million judgment against Mobil Oil Corp. after the company refused to pay utility taxes on natural gas used at the refinery over the last four years. The ruling Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court found that the city was entitled to $1.57 million in unpaid taxes in addition to $745,000 in penalties and interest, said Torrance Mayor Dee Hardison. The lawsuit was filed in 1994 after an audit revealed that utility revenues paid by the company had dropped.

The wife and children of a Chino man shot and killed during a Mobil Oil Co. training session last year in Brea filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday against a co-worker charged with the slaying. Janice Dawkins and her two children are suing Rudy Vibangco Terrenal for unspecified damages in connection with the Oct. 30, 1993, slaying of David Dawkins. The suit also names Mobil Oil Corp., which employed both men, as a defendant.