BP confirms that the fire at Indiana oil refinery has been extinguished; multiple units are down
The company reported that a fire broke out at BP’s Whiting refinery, which produces 440,000 barrels of oil per day, on Friday morning.
Gas prices in some parts of the Midwest skyrocketed after the fire at the U.S. Midwest's largest refinery.
In an email, the company stated that there were no injuries and that it was an accident. The company did not go into detail about the incident.
Two market sources cited data from Wood Mackenzie, which indicated that multiple units had been reported as offline.
The refinery was ablaze
One source said that the refinery was actively flaring early Friday morning, a controlled burning of gas. This was based on a Wood Mackenzie feed of the plant.
Wood Mackenzie has confirmed that it sent out an alert to its clients stating that the 255,000 bpd crude distillation unit and the 60,325 bpd vacuum unit were closed in the morning. The 100,000 bpd cat-feed hydrotreater as well as the 24,300 bpd hydrotreater was also shut down.
Wood Mackenzie's alert stated that the fluid catalytic reactor, which produces 115,000 bpd, was also shut down on Thursday night.
BP stated that the community might have heard internal refinery whistles and seen flaring but did not respond immediately to questions regarding the plant's status.
According to IIR, the refinery began scheduled maintenance on its units in mid-September, including a 90,000 bpd crude-processing unit and a fluid catalytic crate of 65,000 bpd, as well as a 90,000 bpd crude-processing unit. The planned turnaround would last two months.
The refinery was forced to shut down multiple units in August due to flooding that occurred overnight after a severe storm.
The refinery produces gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel.
The Great Lakes spot gas prices spiked overnight due to the BP refinery fire. This could cause prices to cycle soon. Patrick De Haan said that wholesale prices are pointing towards a rise of about 20c/gal for now.
Traders said that gasoline prices on Midwest spot markets also rose earlier this week as a result of tighter supplies. Multiple regional refineries had taken their units offline for maintenance.
(source: Reuters)
