On Tuesday evening, after a number of calls from residents concerned about the strong smell of rotten eggs—persistent outside the town, along State Road 195—Sarroch Mayor Angelo Dessì and Councilors Luca Tolu (Environment) and Umberto Russo (Public Works) went to personally verify whether the stench was coming from the refinery. The result? "The smell was there, and it wasn't strong, but very strong," Tolu summarized: "It lasted about an hour, from 7:30 to 8:30 PM." The administrators immediately contacted Saras by email and phone for an explanation, which sent a team to the site to investigate.

The outcome? The company believes it has nothing to do with the "reported odorous incidents," but is "conducting thorough reviews of its processes to verify any correlations."

Suspicious substances

Suspicions focus on substances like sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide, which have that kind of odor. The refinery has been under a scheduled shutdown for days, but Saras rules out the "remediation" of the FCC plant (which transforms heavier crude oil fractions into gasoline, diesel, and gas cracking) as having anything to do with it: it was "remediated some time ago precisely in anticipation of maintenance," they explain.

The stench, however, was noticeable.

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