Fire Breaks Out, Extinguished at Chevron's Richmond Refinery

Chevron Corp said a fire that broke out at its 245,271 barrel-per-day Richmond, California refinery on Friday morning has been extinguished and no injuries were reported. In addition to the refinery fire crew, the Richmond fire department responded to the fire, the company said in a statement, adding the plant also experienced a process unit upset that caused some flaring.

A spokesperson from the Contra Costa Health Services department said it has requested a report on the incident within 72 hours.

“This report will give the refinery a chance to investigate the incident now that emergency conditions have been abated and provide details to our agency so that we can work together to identify root causes and prevent future similar issues,” it said.

The department also said it determined the refinery fire did not approach “action levels” for contaminants of concern, and believed that the “community should not have been adversely impacted” by the incident.

(Reporting by Bharat Govind Gautam and Arpan Varghese; Aditional reporting by Aaron Saldanha; Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)