BP Plans Return of Whiting Refinery in March

BP Plc (BP.L) plans to return its 435,000 barrel-per-day Whiting, Indiana refinery, the largest in the U.S. Midwest, to full production in March, said people familiar with plant operations on Wednesday.

BP plans to begin restarting the refinery in the last week of February and bring refinery production to full in March, the sources said.

A BP spokesperson did not have information available on Wednesday about the refinery’s plans.

The Whiting refinery was shut on Feb. 1 by a plant-wide power outage initially attributed to the failure of two transformers at the refinery, the sources said.

BP has been assessing refinery units and internal piping for possible damage from the sudden shutdown as well as determining the exact cause of the power loss, according to the sources.

The full shutdown of the refinery triggered the plant’s safety flare system sending plumes of black smoke over Whiting, located 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Chicago.

Retail gasoline prices in the Chicago area have climbed more than 20 cents a gallon since the refinery shut down.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sonali Paul)