WHITING, Ind. — BP’s sprawling oil refinery in northwestern Indiana was hit by a power outage Thursday that prompted the company to close the plant and evacuate workers, authorities said.
Initially, only employees working in an office building at BP’s Whiting refinery were evacuated. But BP later decided to evacuate all employees out of an abundance of caution, Whiting Mayor Steve Spebar told The Times of Northwest Indiana.
Roads near the refinery were also closed and the refinery complex, located on Lake Michigan about 15 miles southeast of Chicago, was flaring its stacks in response to the outage, the city of Whiting said in a statement.
“This flaring is a safety measure to burn the extra product and is a normal process during an event,” the city said. “BP is working to resolve the outage as quickly as possible.”
BP spokesperson Christina Audisho said in a statement that the company was “working to safely close the refinery,” and that local fire departments assisted with the evacuation by closing nearby roads. “The safety of refinery personnel and the community is our top priority. priority,” Audisho added.
The refinery is the largest in the US Midwest and the sixth largest nationally. The refinery processes approximately 440,000 barrels of crude oil daily, making a variety of liquid fuels and asphalt.