BP Whiting Refinery Shut Following Fire

BP Plc’s 435,000 barrel-per-day Whiting, Indiana, refinery is shut and undergoing damage assessment following loss of electrical power and cooling water systems in a Wednesday fire, sources familiar with plant operations said on Friday.

The timing for the refinery’s restart remains unknown as all of the refinery’s units will have to be checked for damage following the sudden loss of electrical power on Wednesday afternoon, the sources said.

BP spokesperson Christina Audisho said on Friday the refinery is "continuing to assess when a restart of the affected units can take place."

Following the assessment, any damage found will have to be repaired.

A few of the refinery’s units have been on cold circulation since, but will require being heated to operating temperatures that can reach 1,000 Fahrenheit (538 Celsius), the sources said.

The Whiting refinery outage sent Chicago CBOB gasoline up 30.5 cents a gallon on Thursday and ultra-low sulfur diesel up 17 cents.

The shutdown of one of the largest refineries in the Midwest comes as farmers are beginning fall harvest across the northern central states.

Whiting is the sixth-biggest by capacity in the United States and the company's largest in the nation, according the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba)