On 23 October, 1989 at approximately 1:05 PM Central Daylight Time, a series of explosions occurred at Phillips Petroleum Company's Houston Chemical Complex in Pasadena, Texas, near the Houston Ship Channel. The initial blast registered 3.5 on the Richter scale, and the resulting fires took 10 hours to bring under control, as efforts to battle the fire were hindered due to damaged water pipes for the fire hydrants from the blast. The initial explosion was found to have resulted from a release of extremely flammable process gasses used to produce high-density polyethylene, a plastic used for various consumer food container products. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Phillips Petroleum Company $5,666,200 and fined Fish Engineering and Construction, inc, the maintenance contractor, $729,600. The event killed 23 employees and injured 314.

Phillips Petroleum Company was an American oil company incorporated in 1917 that expanded into petroleum refining, marketing and transportation, natural gas gathering and the chemicals sectors. It was Phillips Petroleum that first found oil in the North Sea on December 23, 1969, at a position that was later named Ekofisk.