Explosion Shakes BP's Largest Oil Refinery in The U.S.

[Divernan]

Source: ClimateProgress

A fire broke out at BP’s largest U.S. refinery on Wednesday night after a compressor exploded in one of the refinery’s units, sending shakes through local homes and injuring one worker, according to media reports.

The explosion is the latest mishap at the company’s Whiting Refinery in Whiting, Indiana, which in March was responsible for leaking up to 1,638 gallons of oil into Lake Michigan. That incident occurred less than two weeks after the U.S. lifted BP’s ban on seeking new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Whiting refinery is a huge operation, producing up to 423,500 barrels of oil every day. It’s the seventh-largest refinery in the United States, and was recently upgraded to process oil from the Canadian tar sands.
BP said it had contained the fire as of Thursday morning, and that the plant continued to operate.

The plant itself has drawn opposition from environmentalists because of its proximity to Lake Michigan, which supplies drinking water for seven million people in the Chicago area alone.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/08/28/3476659/explosion-bp-whiting-refinery/

---

Thanks, Obama, for lifting BP's ban on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Cause we can see from the series of spills and explosions at BP's largest US refinery that the corporation has really cleaned up its act regarding operating safely! NOT!

[Divernan]

1. Refinery set to expand production from 600,000 tons of petcoke per yr., to 2.2 million tons per yr.

The Whiting refinery was also at the center of another controversy in April, when Chicago residents filed a class action lawsuit against BP over the tar sands refining byproduct produced at the plant — a black, dusty substance called petroleum coke.

Residents sued BP for selling its petroleum coke to Koch Industries, which the lawsuit says stored the byproduct in huge piles along the Calumet river. The residents allege that black, chalky dust from the uncovered piles is blowing into their communities and covering their homes and playgrounds, presenting a serious health risk.

“One of the women here is a mother with children, and when the wind blows her house is covered with this soot,” Rolanda Watson-Clark, a nurse, told ThinkProgress following a May rally calling on Mayor Rahm Emanuel put a stop to petcoke storage in Chicago. “Her five-year-old even knows that when it’s windy, she can’t go out and play.”

The Whiting refinery currently produces about 600,000 tons per year of petcoke, but the recent $3.8 billion expansion has the potential to up its petcoke production to 2.2 million tons per year.

[Divernan]

6. Thank GOD! that petcoke dust doesn't blow over Rahm's family home or his buddies' on the Gold Coast.

Because then, you know, he'd have a problem with that.

[dickthegrouch]

11. If it's so safe, he should offer to rent out space

next to his house. Perhaps he could finance his next election campaign with safe money

[valerief]

2. Choices, choices, choices. We can either have oil refineries blow us up and poison

us or have gas fracking earthquake us and poison us.

Oh, great Solar God in the sky, what do you think we should do?

[L0oniX]

9. ...and BP is a major supplier to the military.

[valerief]

10. And the U.S. military is the biggest user of oil. nt

[wordpix]

3. no big deal, let oil industry continue to write regs & let BP get those new leases

BP acts like the fed gov is theirs to control and own so keep letting them do it. They're doing such a great job with their drilling and refineries. Really upped their safety record after the Gulf disaster

[christx30]

16. Hey, it's expensive to buy congressmen.

They should get some kind of return on their investment.

[raven mad]

4. I despise Big Oil. All of them. I used to think Exxon was the worst.

But BP has them all beat.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. BP's begged to dig UNDER Michigan

in the middle of the lake.

And they promise never to make a mistake.

[valerief]

7. I say do it, only if they promise to blow up only Rick Snyder and any emergency mayors. nt

[ChairmanAgnostic]

25. hey, that's my fishing, drinking, washing, and bathing water!

I don't want to share with BP.

To be perfectly honest, I only use it for making ice cubes on the drinking bit.

[L0oniX]

8. Just in time to raise gas prices for the Labor Day weekend.

Last week it was $3.09, yesterday it was $3.24.

[hibbing]

15. exactly

Certainly gives them that always present "reason" for raising prices.

Peace

[2banon]

19. That's dirt cheap compared to our rates here in Bay Area..

We've been paying over $4. a gallon for a few years, with frequent fluctuations even just below $4, but not by mich. I don't understand why it's cheaper everywhere else in the country, when we have major refineries right here.

[raven mad]

23. Our prices went down a bit in anticipation of jacking heating oil prices.

Winter's coming. From $4.24 we're down to $3.73 for gas................. and up to $3.96 per gallon for heating oil, 100 gallon minimum.

So much for a pipeline in the back yard. Koch shut down our only refinery. Everyone I know, RW, LW, Libertarian, just plain crazy, has a "Koch Bros Go Home" sticker on their door, car, truck......

And we all still hate Exxon as well as BP, Conoco Phillips et al.

Alaska = Big Oil Serf State

[Purveyor]

27. Chicago Gasoline Jumps After BP Whiting Refinery Fire

By Lynn Doan and Dan Murtaugh Aug 28, 2014 1:25 PM ET

An explosion at BP Plc (BP/)’s 405,000-barrel-a-day Whiting refinery, the largest plant in the Chicago area, almost doubled the premium for gasoline today on speculation that supplies will shrink.

Spot gasoline in the Chicago region was 12 cents a gallon above October futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange today, up from a 7.25-cent premium yesterday, according to data complied by Bloomberg at 12:43 p.m. Ultra low sulfur diesel strengthened by 2.75 cents to a 3-cent discount to Nymex futures, while jet fuel jumped 6.5 cents to a 14-cent premium.

BP had a fire at a 105,000-barrel-a-day hydrotreater late yesterday, and the extent of the damage wasn’t immediately clear, Sugar Land, Texas-based IIR Energy said today.

“I don’t know that BP is out in the market today, but people are trying to step out in front of them,” Steve Mosby, supply manager of ADMO Energy LLC, said by phone from Kansas City, Missouri. BP “says it has minimal impact, but when something goes boom, it’s not nothing.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-28/chicago-gasoline-jumps-after-bp-whiting-refinery-fire.html

[oldandhappy]

12. BP spends a lot of money on ads

telling us how wonderful they are. Maybe a few dollars need to be spend for keeping things working correctly. I am really anti BP. They must be paying off someone.

[wordpix]

14. Revolving Door - industry people get into gov. agencies & O needs to clean house!

Industrialists in gov agencies work with their puppetmasters to keep the status quo, just like the House of Reps in Congress. They're protecting the 1%. So they continue to let oil cos. write their own regs and legislation, pay little if anything in penalties for env. violations and do business as usual.

One exec action O should take is to clean house in the agencies.

EPA is among the worst but my research into agrochemicals and healthcare also implicates FDA, NIH, Dept. of Ag and I'm sure there are more.

[951-Riverside]

13. Almost everytime oil prices go way down, a refinery catches fire or there is an explosion

I think for everyone's safety, the national average should remain at $4.50 a gallon.

[Roland99]

17. Just when gas was right about to dip below $3.00/gal

BOOM!

[liberal N proud]

18. Needed to prop up gas prices.

[MisterP]

20. complaining about oil spills can only mean the GOP will win: this will be your final warning

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x326458
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x346686

[bl968]

21. Gas was getting too cheap

It's interesting whenever gas prices start getting too close to the $3 mark that something like this happens and is then used as an excuse by the speculators to jack the prices back up again...

[hedgehog]

22. Compressor technology is very well understood and compressor systems have all kinds of fail safes

built in. If BP actually managed to overpressure a compressor, kudos to them for being right up there with people who have managed to set cooling towers on fire!

[ReRe]

24. K&R

Oil is killing this country.

[truthisfreedom]

26. Oil is great if you don't burn it.

Refining it into gasoline is our biggest mistake. We should be saving it to make plastics to build electric cars.