A MAJOR clean-up was put into operation at Fawley Refinery early yesterday when a huge pipe sprang a leak and 100 tons of crude oil came gushing out.

The incident happened shortly after 2am, but a spokesman for Esso Petroleum stressed that prompt action by staff kept the leak to a minimum.

He explained that the pumps driving the oil into the 36-inch diameter pipe were switched off immediately and the oil which leaked out was oil which was already in the pipe when the accident happened.

"Most of the oil went into a gulley which runs alongside another pipeline and it was barriered off.

"We have been pumping it out and taking it away on small tanker vehicles which we already have on site. It is very difficult to estimate the amount, but it is of the order of 100 tons," he said.

He added that there was no danger to the public, no explosion or fire and no injuries.

The incident was reported to the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency and an investigation got under way immediately.

It is the second incident at the refinery, following a fire which was brought under control by the site's fire crew, and it comes less than three months after Esso was fined £23,000 over a gas leak which occurred in January last year.

The fire and other aspects of the Refinery's activities are due to be discussed at a meeting of the New Forest East Environmental Protection Liaison Committee at Fawley next Thursday.

Committee chairman Malcolm Wade said: "We did seem to have a spate of incidents at the Refinery around the turn of the 1990s and they seemed to put a lot of emphasis on tightening up their operations.

"That did appear to be very successful, but there do seem to have been one or two incidents recently which have given cause for concern.

"Now we would like to see how they can address them and get back to the safe period they had in the late 1990s."