BP Shuts Down 430,000-BBL/d Whiting Refinery in Indiana

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Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A power outage caused BP (NYSE:BP) (London, England) to shut down its 430,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) refinery in Whiting, Indiana on Thursday. The refinery is the Midwest's largest, and the sixth largest in the U.S.

Power was restored late in the afternoon on Thursday and BP was attempting to immediately begin the restart process. IIR Energy continues to confirm the timeline for this restart with current expectations that the restart will be complete over the weekend, according to IIR Energy.

While there seemed to be no immediate danger from the transformer failures, BP first evacuated office personnel only, then cleared the entire facility out of an abundance of caution. Nearby roads were also shut down as BP worked to restore power.

As of around 7:00 pm local time on Thursday, the refinery was flaring extra product, as an additional safety measure, while the refinery worked to restore power.

Located just southeast of Chicago, the refinery supplies large amounts of product to the city. Some were concerned that gasoline prices could spike in the hours after the shutdown.

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Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).