Chevron Refinery Fire: Huge Blaze In Richmond Can Be Seen For Miles
By
Terry Collins and Jason Dearen
August 6, 2012—Richmond, Calif.--A major fire at
one of the country's biggest oil refineries that sent hundreds of
people to hospitals with complaints of breathing problems will push
gas prices above $4 a gallon on the West Coast, analysts said
Tuesday.
The fire, which sent plumes of black smoke over
the San Francisco Bay area, erupted Monday evening in the massive
Chevron refinery about 10 miles northeast of San Francisco. It was
out early Tuesday.
The West Coast is particularly vulnerable to
spikes in gasoline prices because it's not well-connected to the
refineries along the Gulf Coast, where most of the country's refining
capacity is located, analysts say.
The Chevron refinery is particularly big and
important to the West Coast market, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst
at Oil Price Information Service.
It produces about 150,000 barrels of gasoline a
day–16 percent of the region's daily gasoline consumption of
963,000 barrels, he said.
California's average price Tuesday for a gallon of
regular gasoline was $3.86. But with inventories in the region
already low compared with the rest of the country, pump prices along
the West Coast will soon average more than $4 a gallon, Kloza said.
Chevron spokesman Lloyd Avram said he did not have
an update on when the refinery could be restarted and declined to
comment on what kind of impact the shutdown might have on the
gasoline market.
"Spot prices have already increased by as
much as 30 cents per gallon in some West Coast markets and that's
before the refinery damage has been fully assessed," said
analyst Patrick DeHaan of the website GasBuddy.com.
The fire began around 6:15 p.m. Monday in the
refinery's No. 4 Crude Unit, about two hours after a vapor leak of
hydrocarbons similar to diesel, said Heather Kulp, a Chevron
spokeswoman.
"At approximately 6:30 p.m., the volume
increased and personnel evacuated the area," she said at a news
conference. "The hydrocarbon vapor then ignited and a fire
occurred."
Kulp said there were no explosions, and staff at
the refinery initiated an emergency response immediately after the
fire started.
The cause is under investigation.
The black smoke and flames could be seen miles
away from the refinery that has long been the target of complaints
and lawsuits by people who live near it in Richmond, a mostly
low-income community with five major oil refineries.
Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said the fire was
unacceptable.
"We live with the day-to-day risk of this
type of manufacturing and refining that has an impact on our
community with pollutants being released, but with the accident that
happened yesterday, that doesn't mean it's acceptable, because it's
not," McLaughlin said in a KCBS radio interview.
State workplace safety investigators cordoned off
the entire crude unit, and no one was being allowed to enter without
approval from the state, said Erika Monterroza, a spokeswoman for
California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA.
"Investigators have notified us that
Chevron's emergency response was excellent," Monterroza said.
Three employees suffered minor injuries and were
treated at the scene.
Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo, a town near
the refinery, said more than 300 people had sought help for eye
irritation and breathing problems.
The hospital said most of the
patients were released after being seen.
Kaiser's Richmond Medical Center said it had
assessed and treated more than 350 people with respiratory concerns
in its emergency department.
No patients were admitted to the
facility, said Jessie Mangaliman, a spokesman for Kaiser Permanente.
Air quality officials said the region's 27
monitoring stations detected some increases in pollution.
"Those impacts have now decreased
significantly over time since the fire was put out yesterday,"
said Eric Stevenson, director of technical services for the Bay Area
Air Quality Management District, which is responsible for monitoring
the site's compliance with air pollution laws.
Stevenson said the impacts were still well under
state and federal air quality limits, but air samples were undergoing
lab testing for toxins to which people may have been exposed.
Residents said they heard loud blasts around the
time the fire broke out, although Chevron officials could not confirm
those reports.
Carol Bluitt, who lives just blocks from the
refinery, said she's still traumatized from the smoky blaze that
darkened the sky for miles and smelled like burning rubber.
"You could clearly tell there was something
toxic in the air.
My eyes were really, really red and running,"
said Bluitt, who went to the hospital and began crying in front of
her doctors, complaining that her chest was tight.
She said they prescribed eye drops and an inhaler
to use every two hours. But she wasn't sure the remedies were
helping.
A fire at the refinery in January 2007 injured two
workers and spewed low levels of sulfur dioxide and other toxins into
the air. County officials said that it was not enough to harm the
health of nearby residents.
That fire shut down the refinery for most of that
year's first earnings quarter.
__
AP writers John Marshall and Garance Burke
contributed from San Francisco. Energy reporters Jonathan Fahey in
New York and Sandy Shore in Denver also contributed to this report.
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