After an October fire and its annual fall maintenance project, the BP Whiting Refinery has returned to full production.
The sprawling refinery in Whiting, Hammond and East Chicago resumed full production in the last week of November, according to Reuters. It took production equipment offline due to the fire and the planned maintenance turnaround.
Spokesperson Cesar Rodriguez said BP does not comment on operations.
The fire blazed in mid-October at the 440,000-barrel-per-day refinery, which is the largest in the Midwest. It resulted in flaring and could be smelled as far away as Chicago. Due to the fire, several units, including the crude distillation unit, which distills crude oil into gasoline, went down.
Wholesale gas prices spiked 20 cents immediately after the blaze, GasBuddy Head of Petroleum Analysis Patrick De Haan said. Gas prices ended up shooting up by as much as 49 cents a gallon in Ohio.
Contractors also spent around two months on the maintenance turnaround of equipment like the fluid catalytic cracker in a seasonal maintenance project that takes place every year after the busy summer travel season winds down. BP estimates it typically employs around 1,500 contractors at the refinery.
The refinery suffered a power outage two weeks after the fire and a lightning strike and heavy flooding during a thunderstorm in August that resulted in an oil spill inside the refinery and environmental violations that led the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to request a remediation plan.
