Fire rages at Chevron California oil refinery

Nearby residents ordered to remain indoors after blaze broke out at company's Richmond facility on Monday Evening

A lasting outage at the oil refinery could cause a swift rise in gasoline prices across the West Coast [Al Jazeera]

A fire has broken out in the main processing unit at Chevron Corp's large Richmond, California, refinery, spewing large flames and prompting authorities to order nearby residents to remain indoors. The fire broke out on Monday evening local time at the 245,000 barrel per day (bpd) plant. Local media and a filing to state regulators, said the fire hit the plant's crude distillation unit, which represents one-eighth of the state's refining capacity. A lasting outage there could cause a swift rise in gasoline prices across the West Coast, a region that is isolated from other markets. Chevron spokesman Walt Gill told local television that the fire had started in the No. 4 crude unit at 6:15pm local time (01:15 GMT on Tuesday), and it was not known when it might be extinguished. The size of the No. 4 unit was not immediately clear. We are "very disappointed that this happened, and apologise that we are inconveniencing our neighbours," Gill said. Refinery sources said all workers at the plant had been accounted for. There were no injuries reported. KTVU-TV reported a large blaze was raging at the refinery sending a plume of black smoke into the air over the San Francisco Bay-area plant. Nearby residents are being told to shelter in place, an order typically given to prevent the risk of exposure to dangerous chemicals. Sulfuric acid and nitrogen dioxide were released during the incident, according to a filing with the California Emergency Management Agency. Any prolonged disruption in production could have a significant impact on the regional fuel markets, particularly gasoline, due to the difficulty in making California's super-clean specifications and the fact that the West Coast region has few immediate alternative supply sources in case of an outage. The crude distillation unit (CDU) is at the heart of the refining process, converting the crude oil coming into a refinery into intermediate feedstock for all other units. It can take months to repair a CDU at a large plant, during which time operations are typically severely limited. Source: Al Jazeera