March 24, 2005
Reuters
TEXAS CITY, Texas (Reuters) - An explosion rocked BP's sprawling refining complex in Texas City, Texas, on Wednesday, killing at least 14 and causing extensive damage, the company said.
"We believe 14 people lost their lives as a result of the fire," BP site director Don Parus told reporters.
An estimated 100 people were injured by the powerful blast, which shattered windows and shook buildings for miles around, BP and area health officials said.
Of the injured, more than 70 were working at the facility, plant spokesman Bill Stephens said.
"It's a sad day for BP," Parus said from the third-largest U.S. crude oil refinery.
The blast sent a huge plume of black smoke billowing into the sky near the city of Galveston. The plant is about 35 miles southeast of downtown Houston.
The explosion took place on the western side of the sprawling 1,200-acre complex in one of the units used to make high-grade fuels. Company officials said the cause was not immediately known.
BP said it did not suspect a terrorist attack was behind the blast, which caused several scattered fires at the plant that took firefighters about two hours to extinguish.
"We have no reason to believe this was anything caused by an outside agent," said company spokesman Hugh Depland.
Television reports showed workers carrying out the injured on stretchers amid piles of twisted metal and rubble. Extreme heat from the fire caused several cars and trucks parked on the site to explode.
"It shook everything," Rose Martin, who works near the refinery, told a local television station. "As soon as I walked out the door (to see it), it was nothing but fire and black smoke."
The BP refinery has a throughput of 470,000 barrels per day and is said to produce about 3 percent of the U.S. gasoline supply. The company said damage had been limited to an isomerization unit, and other parts of the refinery remained in operation.
"The isom unit has run reliably and safely" in the past, plant operations manager Kathleen Lucas said.
News of the refinery explosion sent gasoline futures prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange to all-time peaks above $1.60 a gallon in electronic trade and boosted cash prices in the Gulf Coast region.
Prices receded to around $1.58 later Wednesday night, however.
The explosion comes almost one year to the day after another blast and fire rocked the refinery and chemical complex. On March 30, 2004, a large explosion and fire occurred in a gasoline-making unit but there were no injuries.
That 2004 accident resulted in citations for 14 alleged violations from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
BP took over the plant, which first began operations in 1934, when it bought U.S. company Amoco in 1999.
Texas City Mayor Pro-tem Mike Land said a "shelter in place" advisory had been issued, then withdrawn, for nearby residents of the plant.
"This is the lifeblood of our community and this is a horrible disaster," Land said.
BP's U.S.-listed shares closed down 2.4 percent, or $1.51, at $62.01 per share on the New York Stock Exchange.
In April 1947, Texas City was the site of one of the worst-ever industrial accidents in the United States when a ship full of fertilizer component ammonium nitrate blew up, killing as many as 800 and injuring an estimated 5,000.
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