Power loss stress BP to close mega US Midwest refinery

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BP was purging its 435,000 barrel per day bpd, Whiting, Indian, refinery of hydrocarbons on Thursday after a transformer failure caused a plant wide power outage and stress an evacuation of all however the most essential labours revealed people familiar with plant operations.

It is not clear how much BP take time to start again the refinery which company biggest in North America and mega in the Midwest.

News of the Whiting refinery outage which happened at midday, pushed up diesel and gasoline price in the area on danger of tighter fuel supply and decrease Canadian crude prices on concerns of lower demand.

BP expressed the refinery closed down following power outage which forced employees to escape office buildings.

BP began sending nitrogen into some of the units to purge hydrocarbons from them as other continued to burn off hydrocarbons through the refinery safety flare system the sources revealed.

Flaring burns off volatile hydrocarbons that cannot be processed normally due to shutdown. Without flaring the hydrocarbons could cause a fire or explosion.

Refinery as mega and complex as Whiting could resume operations within a week restart times can vary following power outages revealed John Auers.

The sources expressed the evacuation was the mega they had view in years that plant which located next to Lake Michigan and 20 miles southeast of downtown Chicago.

The Whiting refinery was close last time by an Aug 24, 2022 fire in a single electrical line that knocked out the plants cooling water supply.It took a week and half to restart the refinery after fire.

Chicago gasoline and diesel cash difference jump between 20 and 15 cents in Thursday trading to 30 cents per gallon below the diesel and gasoline on New York Mercantile Exchange.

WCS prices at the Cushing Oklahoma storage hub eased 25 cents while those Houston down 30 cents. Western Canadian Select WCS for March delivery which settled at $18.10 a barrel under West Texas Intermediate WTI on Wednesday was sold off on Whiting news and settled at $19 a barrel under WTI.