We can now reveal that the operational incident at the Fawley refinery was caused by the partial collapse of a structure. On Tuesday evening, large flares lit up the sky after a structure used to produce gasoline partially collapsed. Residents described the flare glow as looking like “a large sunset” over the skies above Fawley. According to a source within the Fawley Oil Refinery, the oil company was forced to isolate a unit following an incident in the Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU) that resulted in gas flaring. The FFCU is a type of refining equipment that is used to convert crude oil into lighter petroleum products such as liquified petroleum gas and gasoline. “The workings of an oil refinery are very complex,” the source said. “However, as I understand it, this incident occurred on the Catalytic Cracking Unit, which is widely known by site workers to be integral to the production of petrol.”   “We identified an issue on one of our units around 4.40pm on Tuesday,” an oil company spokesman said. Our own onsite teams safely and effectively addressed the issue, shutting down the unit.” “There were no injuries and no fire.” “We will now work to determine the steps necessary to reactivate the unit.” It went on to say that flaring is a controlled mechanism for safely managing excess gas while units are isolated.