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Subscribe to RSSResidents living near Richmond, California, are being told to stay inside and shut their windows after a fire erupted at a Chevron oil refinery. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
Updated at 8:05 a.m. ET: A massive fire struck at the core of Chevron's large Richmond, Calif., refinery on Monday, spewing flames and a column of smoke into the air, and threatening a prolonged outage that may increase prices of U.S. gasoline.
The fire was contained by 11 p.m. (2 a.m. ET), according to the company. The fire blazed for hours after it erupted at the refinery in a densely populated industrial suburb east of San Francisco. Smoke could be seen billowing over the Bay Area and four train stations were shut.
Thousands of local residents were ordered to stay indoors and shut all windows and doors after the fire hit the sole crude unit at the 245,000 barrel per day plant, which accounts for one-eighth of California state's refining capacity. But that order was later lifted.
"I heard a big boom ... then the alarms started going off," 23-year-old local resident Daniela Rodriguez told the Contra Costa Times.
"I was getting kind of scared. I went into my backyard and could see a big, dark gray cloud. I saw it was coming from where the refinery is, so I told my mom to lock the windows," the newspaper quoted her as saying.
Read more about this story on NBCBayArea.com
The plume from the fire reached an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 feet above ground level, officials said at a news conference, according to the Times.
No fatalities
All workers had been accounted for and no fatalities were reported, but one employee was treated at an on-site clinic for burns to his wrist, the San Francisco Chronicle said.
About 200 people have sought medical help, complaining of respiratory problems, the San Pablo, Calif.-based Doctors Medical Center said in a statement.
"They told me I'm not going to die, but it sure feels pretty serious," 21-year-old Richmond resident Julius Bailey told the Chronicle after seeing a doctor for respiratory complaints at Kaiser’s Richmond Medical Center.
The fire had started in the No. 4 crude unit, the only one at the plant, at 6:15 p.m. shortly after a leak was discovered, Chevron said.
As the leak grew, workers were evacuated, plant manager Nigel Hearn told journalists at the site. He said some units were still operating, but gave no details.
Complete US news coverage on NBCNews.com
Supply could be affected
Any lengthy disruption in production could affect the supply of fuel in the West Coast, particularly gasoline, due to the difficulty in meeting California's super-clean specifications. The region also has few immediate alternative supply sources.
"Chevron will have a hard time finding replacement barrels in an already short market," said Bob van der Valk, a petroleum industry analyst in Terry, Mont.
"Refineries are already drawing down summer blend inventory in anticipation of the switch back to winter blend gasoline," he said.
Residents of Richmond were advised to "shelter in place", an order often given during refinery accidents to shield against possible exposure to toxic chemicals or smoke. Sulfuric acid and nitrogen dioxide were released during the incident, according to a filing with the California Emergency Management Agency.
"We heard the sirens go off and I said, 'Thunderdome blew,'" Richmond resident Emmett Zediker told the Times.
Josh Edelson / Reuters
Firefighters douse flames at the Chevron oil refinery in in Richmond, Calif., on Monday.
"We call Chevron 'Thunderdome' because when it blows, it blows. So we cracked open a bottle of vintage wine and we are having an apocalypse party," the Times quoted him as saying.
Key to local economy
The refinery, the third-largest in California and among the oldest in the country, is key to the economy of Richmond, a declining industrial city. But it has stirred controversy among local residents concerned about the environmental impacts and local politicians often seeking more tax revenues.
"I looked out the window and saw 40 foot flames and black smoke," Marc Mowrey, a Point Richmond resident who lives about a mile from the plant, said in a telephone interview.
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He said the smell was not exceptional or very different from other days, but a huge plume of smoke was sitting over Richmond and neighboring El Cerrito.
At its peak 10 years ago, the refinery employed over 1,300 people on a site of over 2,900 acres.
Last week, the refinery reported vapor leaks and a compressor failure to California pollution regulators, according to notices. The notices did not say which units were involved.
Fire breaks out after explosion at Okla. oil refinery
We are "very disappointed that this happened, and apologize that we are inconveniencing our neighbors," Chevron spokesman Walt Gill told local television.
A Reuters reporter who lives nearby said he heard some loud bangs and a siren as the fire erupted, but a Chevron spokesman denied reports of an explosion.
In 2006, an explosion at the plant sent hundreds of people to the hospital. Incidents also occurred in 1999 and 2007.
It is common to shut down the entire plant in the event of a major blaze. A Feb. 17 fire at the crude installation units of BP's 225,000-bpd Cherry Point, Wash., refinery led to a three-month shutdown and sent the regional price premium to more than $1 a gallon in some places.
Read Chevron's official statements on the incident
Reuters and NBC News staff contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
up another $.50 in the morning. I do hope everyone is alright! And huricane season is around the corner.....
LOL!. Yep, you can see that one coming.
No doubt. And the Conservatives will blame Obama for any price increases.
This is gonna hurt those of us that are still underemployed. : (
Amazing! Two refinery fires in a week. Evil refineries, bad, bad, bad. How mysterious bet there will be some jerk that will say the republicans will blame it on O'Dumbo. Who would think such a thing? We don't have subversion in this country.
You know what? If you libs would stop requiring so many damn fuel blends to meet this requirement and that requirement, and every part of every state having it's own blend requirement, maybe a single refinery shutdown would NOT have such an impact on the price of gasoline. So, I WILL blame Obama and any other liberal radical who thought they were too good to use that blend and had to have their own.
If California wasn't so "special" and too good for every one else's fuel, they could get their fuel from any one of a number of other refineries in a pinch.
Those special blends do nothing for the environment.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
Probably, but it is mis-placed blame, even though Obama is on record supporting rising prices for all fossil fuels. The blame should be laid squarely at the feet of the people who have mandated changes in the composition of gasoline over the years and simultaneously blocked the construction of new refineries that might make the production of these frankenfuels more cost effective.
Hold onto your wallets,,i feel a spike in gas prices coming,,as if they need another excuse huh?
I am blaming President Bush for poor refinery standards along with the BP oil spill during the Bush administration; we have a great leader now with President Obama leading the 9 percent unemployed and 50 million food stampee's every week for three years, but now doubt the former President gets the blame especially in Reagan land...
Ever consider that these may NOT be random events? How well vetted are the employees at these facilities?
What about the many forest/wildfires that are attributed to global warming but some of which are reported as arson?
Are these events mere coincidence or a more subtle form of terrorism/anti-American activism?
Consider the impact on citizens here. Beyond the financial impact of fire fighting/higher fuel prices, and the numerous personal tragedies caused by the fires, there are also regulatory and legal aspects to these events.
What better way to torment those you seek to harm than to organize events you know will have far reaching negative impacts on the country you hate.
AGAIN? Why does this keep happening? I live south of them and am really tired of breathing dirty,poisoned air and having to put up with their waste.
PAY at the PUMP !!! here we get it again ,right up our rump !!!
Yes, that's what we need. More refineries in our neighborhoods. Because then there's no way oil companies will raise the price of fuel when things like this happens. No way, at all.
Maybe Mr. Obama will have the DOE provide a change to "regulations" which would allow homeowners to "refine" oil in their garages. The more homes which will do this will reduce the number of refinery fires (just like the spin on unemployment numbers). Hey, even provide a "Go Green" incentive of $ 500,000 for each home which does this. /s/
Yet another reason to jack the prices on the consumers.
Maybe they should take a pay cut out of their own salaries for their fuk-up in creating this mess. Why should the consume always be the ones to pick up the tab on rich people and companies errors?
PHOTO: flic.kr/p/cM9T2J
30 min after fire started, smoke looming over the Richmond-San Rafael bridge.
The single biggest profit earner on a gallon of gas is the government. The oil companies only wish they made as much on a gallon as the government does thru its taxes on gas
And for those defending obummer for high gas prices seem to forget how he blamed Bush for high prices. So I guess if a dem is in office and the price goes up it is because of the repubs but if a repub is in office and the price goes up it is still because of the repubs. Some logic there libtards.
@ davefromdanapointca
You should check the gas prices from 2000 to 2008, it increases at incredible rates unlike anything before.
Also, the debt will increase even after years of paying just interest. Bush left us with a battered economic, Obama inherited it. Try to get into debt and see how you fare before you open your mouth.
JULEA BACALL
When did you move NEXT to the existing facility? There has NOT been a new refinery in the USA in YEARS. You sound like the people who complain about noise from the airports and DEMAND they restrict the flights.... Denver built a new airport in the early/mid 1990's out in the boonies... everyone either congratulated or complained it was so FAR from town. Now they are building homes/apts next to the airport and people are already complaining about the NOISE...
NIMBY idiots.
Cuong,
Ever heard of Hurricane Katrina? The price of gas was well below the 2.50 mark until it wiped out the gulf oil rigs. Are you going to blame that on Bush? Ever heard of Ethanol? The mandate that the libs pushed on us for its use also sent the price of gas up not to mention the average MPG down. Ever heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Bush tried to warn us of that but the libs who controlled those 2 institutions ignored him and they are a huge part of the housing bubble collapse that reeked havoc on the world economy.
As far as getting into debt I have never been close in my near 50 years of life because I always have lived within my means. I didn't need to go out and buy the latest and greatest all the time trying to keep up with the Jone's. I drive my cars for 12 -15 years and I take care of them. I have owned my own home for 25 years. I payed it off in 15 years time. I didn't try to buy more than I could ever afford like so many have. I didn't buy things to try and impress others. I took responsibility in my actions and now some idiot president wants me to pay for your mistakes. You sound like a 20 something without a clue to even try to bring this up. You should keep your mouth shut and be assumed a fool than to open it and prove such.
we are killing ourselves in search of the almighty dollar peoples new god, what a crazy world we live in, and as for the oil barrons they are just greedy pigs at best
class action lawsuit for polluting our world
I guess you don't drive on the roads that the gas taxes have paid for. But you are another selfish, short sighted conservative.
The oil companies would do anything to defeat Barack Obama including setting their own refineries on fire.
The biggest surprise in this whole story is that California actually still has oil refineries in the state and they have not found a way to shut them down. Although I am sure they have tried.
remember neighborhoods were built around the refineries so folks were closer to work...
and the folks making the most money here are the oil companies, I mean $21 billion profit for exxon/mobil in the second quarter alone.. and the wall street speculators.. the speculators are a big part of the prices rising..
and last but not least our PRESIDENTis not responsible for increased gas prices
davefromdanapointca #1.21 - Tue Aug 7, 2012 6:42 AM EDT
GOOD FOR YOU! That is the standard by which I live also. I guess there a few of us intelligent people left yet who have not been brainwashed by the idiotic lib philosophy of borrow your way to wealth, and it's everyone else's responsibility to pay our way.
Conservatives
Morons that don't know squat!
1wizard:
Nearly a decade ago now in another oil refinery in the San Francisco Bay area (there are 4 ) a mid level manager decided to replace a wore out pipe on the cheap. Oil is distilled in columns with different products being produced at different levels. There is this U shaped pipe on the side of one column that was wearing out. They had the new one there and just needed to shut the column down to do the job.
But this guy want to replace it while the column was working. Just turn off the block valves to that pie and then replace it. What could go wrong? The company maintenance crew refused to do it. Outside contractors refused to do it. But he found some non Union carpenters and laborers who were willing to do it. So they climbed the ladder to the work platform and opened up the flanges. now that product is at 800 degrees and flashes into flames as soon as it hits the atmosphere.
Three died that day and the fourth lived for three more days in agony. After they were burned they climbed down that ladder and lay on the ground for an hour and a half while that manager tried to decide what to do. Finally the ambulances were allowed in.
The city pulled the operating license for that refinery and the employees spent 3 months going to safety classes while we Union workers went through that refinery repairing and upgrading all the little things that had not been done in the name of greed.
Remember it is the job of government to protect its citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
$4.15 in Michigan today, it will be $5.00 tomorrow.
STexan: President Obama has NOTHING to do with the blends in California....blame it on the California legislation. Why don't you worry about your own state before you start blaming our president for something that he has NOTHING to do with.....give me a break!! What a ridiculous thing to say!! Typical comment from a right-wing nutjob!!!
For those of you OUTSIDE of California who are complaining about rising gas prices....this refinery fire will only affect California and NOT any other state!! Additionally, gas prices are NOT set by our government; they are based on speculators and the commodities market....they are the ones who control our gas prices, so why don't you bitch at them rather than blame it on our president and his administration? Boy, people are so ridiculous....they make comments with no research or background!!! Get a life!
I said it once and I'll say it again, if this country would go back to the days of horse and buggy, we'd all be safer, and our wallets wouldn't hurt so much,ie; not gas prices to pay, no ever rising insurance prices to pay, no expensive maintance costs to pay, and one hellva lot safer from all the idiots that use cell phones and drive, not to mention the DUI?DWI's etc.
@ Wakehead. Are you saying that everypenny the gov. reaps from gas taxes goes directly back into the roads and transportation infrastructure? If you believe that then I have a bridge in New York to sell you and a great price. P.M. me and I will give you the details. Bwahahahaha.
Oh how convenient. The oil giants will have some lame excuse as to why their other plants cant fill the refining capacity & the price of gas will skyrocket... and the oil companies will have another year of record profits and the right wing nut jobs will blame the president. Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist or anything, but it IS suspicious that in a fire like this or the one this winter in Washington, no injuries were reported and every one got out OK.
How sad that you would twist such a tragedy to your own political agenda....
Yeah, it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that no new oil refineries have been built in the United States since 1976.
Tragedy? What tragedy? No one was killed and for that matter no one was injured. Its not tragic in the least. The tragedy is that the oil giants will use this as an excuse to jack up the price of gasoline instead of absorbing the cost as part of doing business and paying for it out of the record profits they raked in last year.
EMDF9A
You do realize a lot of people will be forced from their homes. Many will probably be laid off for repairs.
I guess when people lose their jobs and their entire family suffers you don't care.
They will be layed off. They will get unemployment (Yes its not perfect, but it is a safety net) and they ALL will go back to work in 3-6 months, and the oil giants wont care. They will still jack up the price of gasoline and cause a ripple effect throughout the country and will still rake in record profits demanding that the consumer pay for this incident.
EMDF9A:
So you don't think those higher prices won't hurt so many families suffering already?
You just won the click the "Ignore this author" button.
Rockyroad, the point is that the prices dont HAVE to go up. People dont HAVE to suffer, but the oil company will make that happen because they wont pay for their own failure. They expect the consumer to pay for it.
When a plane crashes, do the airlines raise the ticket price because they just lost a $150M jet? No.
When a ship sinks does the cost of sweaters in the container it was hauling go up 40%? No.
When the local Safeway's meat counter has a refrigeration failure does the price of porkchops spike? No.
I could go on and on, but that would just be overkill.
But when a refinery goes down (Under suspicious circumstances no less) the oil giants feel perfely fine in overnight jacking up the price of their product (that was BTW refined a month ago) because they know we have no choice but to pay for it. They dont have to do that. They could rebuild that refinery from the ground up without raising the proce of gasoline one penny... and still rake in record profits. That would be the right thing to do... But no... we pay for it through the nose.
the only TRADEGY is all that GASOLINE thats just burnin up and not in my tank
EMDR9A, I do remember getting a letter from State Farm Insurance in 2001 stating "due to catastrophic events" your insurance premiums will be going up.
@Rick-854092
Ahh yes, my mother has a high blood pressure and we have known for years. She got check up each year and you know what? Every times they check her blood, they charge her for "high blood pressure" from the test because it shows up. Even though we know about it, they know about it and yet they still charge us while doing nothing simply because she has it.
Refineries are operating at or over capacity to take advantage of the already high refining margins. That's one of the reasons that these fires are occurring, and it's also the reason why other refineries can't just make up that lost capacity when one goes down. Hopefully this will just be a short-term shutdown, but we won't know until damage assessments are released..
There's really not too much that's suspicious about fires occurring on occasion at plants processing fuels with equipment operating at temperatures up to 1000 degrees F and pressures as high as 2000 psi, blowing as much product as possible through the plant and delaying maintenance a long as possible to avoid shutting down an operation that could be brining in a million dollars a day or more. Nobody's trying to lose 20% of their US refining capacity (or 100% of their capacity in a region), because they'll never recover that based on the relatively small price hikes that result (i.e., much less than 20% nationally or 100% locally). Not to mention the cost of repairs and lawsuits. In that situation, it's the other guys that are making money at your expense.
the other reason these fires are occurring is because the companys refuse to put their record profits back into their facilities, leaving most refinarys in bad shape and lacking the ability to make needed repairs and keeping them from implamenting new technologies that could cut back on the polution produced.
until the fines these companies pay for poluting are high enough to force them to make repairs and upgrades then this will continue to be the norm.
Another excuse for jacking up the price yet again!!
Last week, the excuse for 10 cent rise was the drought and barges are having problems going up the Mississippi... ...so they "gotta raise the price"...
John, don't forget the Tulsa refinery fire.
I feel for the families that live near and work at the refineries.
John, gas went from 3.85 to 4.14 the next morning in my area
John: As I said earlier....you DO know that this will affect prices ONLY in California because this is a blended gasoline, which is ONLY used in California. It will do NOTHING to affect the rest of the country....you will be able to get gas from any other refinery because you do not have the "blended" gas that we have her in California (and who voted for that, I wonder). So, quit complaining about the rising gas prices because of this refinery fire....ain't got NOTHING to do with the prices rising across the country. If you have a problem, talk to the speculators who deal with the commodity market....they are the ones that control the prices of gas!!
Say Swami Didi o.O The oil companies use any excuse. Read the article. Supply is limited in Cali. Supplies will have to be taken from somewhere else to make up for this new shortage. Ergo, supply will be reduced elsewhere. Supply vs demand means the Price Will Go Up. It's simple economics.
"John: As I said earlier," oh Didi....Commenting on a post made on Mon Aug 6, 2012 10:56 PM EDT and citing your argument posted on Tue Aug 7, 2012 11:27 AM EDT like John did not read your future comment*tsk tsk tsk*.
Also, 'tis true that in Calif. we use blended fuel; however, there is nothing really special about it other than taking normal 'ol petrol and mixing it with quite a few other additives. The refinery in Richmond did not make special magical blended gas from their distillation units; they made normal gas and blended it with other stuff. That in mind, it is possible for gas prices to increase outside of Calif. Why? Two possible reasons. 1) Chevron lost a refinery and will possibly raise the price gas and other petroleum products are being sold at by them to recoup some losses. 2) Calif. still needs their special blended fuel, so it is possible that in order to fill demand Chevron will buy gas from other companies or divert gas from their other refineries out of state and blend it here to be sold.
Not to discount the notion that speculation of oil can inflate prices paid at the pump, but the loss of a refinery can also inflate prices outside its state.
EDIT: Gosh darn it ML from NW FL, you outposted me on that. +1 :P
I live in San Rafael, CA, just across the bay from this fire. Pretty dramatic with heavy black smoke. Everybody living in the immediate area are being asked to "shelter-in-place" to avoid breathing this toxic stuff. Local news says one minor injury (burn to the wrist). Tons of water being poured onto the fire the last hour and a half. Looking some better at this point but still lots of smoke.
Be safe and I hope all will be well soon.
We are ALL Americans.
Yep, they needed an excuse to raise the price and make more profits. The good old american way, sc re w the public.
$5.00 at Last,I knew that 4 bucks was killing them,just bury us already...
Oh no - those evil "oil giants"!!
You must be a stock holder
If you have a 401k, you could also be a stockholder.
It's almost uncanny that the majority of the mental collective of this country immediately suspects something's afoul when the oil companies have a refinery fire . . . but rightfully so. These corporate vampires have tricks up their sleeves to fleece us all. Including burning down one of their own refineries and setting the money machine in motion. They're going to see how far they can push it, wait and see.
Just wait. When the people of Saudi Arabia demand democracy the whole Middle East will go up in flames and you won't be able to get gas at any price. King is getting old so it's gonna happen soon.
Why? They would still need to sell their oil.
Oh-oh...looking like it is getting worse again. More fire trucks headed into refinery. Can see more flames again.
if u can see it, they will be making headway when white appears in the black smoke.
New pope?
LMAO. Nicely done, Wild Bill...
Yeah,his name is Pope moonbeam I. hee hee!
Just another excuse. It would be nice if they picked up their own tab for their own problems. WE didn't catch it on fire, but we will darn well pay every penny of it, as if we did. I bet if they had to absorb that cost all by themselves they would burn down so often?
TMJ
You might understand this better if you educated yourself...It was about four years ago, Chevron was building a new refinery.. This was to be even better oil refined for you special Californians..BUT after everyone agreed on the new building, etc., after it was half way completed, the enviro nuts came and shut her down....Its in litigation right now...That was one of the dumbest things I had ever seen... If these enviro idiots would stay out of California's way you would have jobs, your economy would be booming as it used to...
This is one of those unfortunate accidents that happen.. Give it a few and Chevron will take care of it.. In the meantime, Californians need to begin stopping these environmentalists and start to grow.. This accident I would blame on enviro nuts...
your jokeing right? you blame this on "enviro nuts"? I'm sorry it is a sin to expect clean air to breath and clean water. as many have posted there has not been a new refinary built in decades, you write this off as being the fault of "enviro nuts" which i will agree in a small part it is, since they seem to be the only ones fighting for our future generations right to breath.
The main reason no new refinarys are built is because with the technology that we have today we are able to build refinarys that polute half as much as the current models that are in operation right now. however the cost of this new technology is high so big oil refuses to pay for this and when they apply to build a new refinary they only apply for building using the old outdated models (the same can be said for Nuclear power plants).
Cant let the fire go out too early, Its easier to cleanup and permanently remove with a total burn.
This $#!T is being staged. There's been a series of these so called "Accidents" over the last month and I detect the distinct odor of oil company BULL$#!T.
Why, you ask. Because oil prices have actually been reasonable this summer. The big oil piggy boys don't LIKE that $#!T. So they f$%& up a couple refineries (nothing really serious, just enough to goose the Wall Street brown nosers into jacking the futures, and bumping their profits back to where they want them to be).
And as an added bonus, they get high oil prices going into the election giving their b*tch Mitt Rmoney some extra ammunition to use against Obama when they pin the higher oil prices on him. And the fact that they're messing with an economy that's pretty weak to begin with, and they KNOW they could cause a whole lot more problems by pulling this cr@p...means not a f$%&ing thing to them.
There needs to be a law that imprisons any anyone caught trying to manipulate commodities prices, but the Repubican sellouts in the house would never allow it.
My next car is gonna be either a hybrid or full blown electric, screw these thieves.
No the accidents are not staged. But prices will go up. Not because of paranoia fantasties, rather because these accidents will happen. Cracking oil is dangerous. It is that simple.
During WW2 large refineries were bombed but got back into action quickly. Why? Because refineries are used to being prepared for explosions.
Same thing here. Bottom line: We will pay more at the pump, but not because of a staged accident.
There is a law against manipulating commodities prices and there is also one called arson.
Yeah, and that's why Wall Street just melted down because they followed and enforced those laws... NOT!
James Griffin, please read my post just above yours.. You my kind sir, need to educate yourself.. You need to research.. The enviro fools will not allow NEW REFINERIES... They are to blame... California needs to kick these people out of your state.. They and the illegal is killing your economy.
Jean: I suppose you don't mind polluted air or water? Fortunately, I applaud their efforts to keep California safe from these problems. We're losing our trees, our agriculture, etc. because of environmental problems....so I hope they get even tougher! I assume you're one of those conservative right-wing nuts who think the EPA should be shut down and that global warming isn't really occurring. Do some research before you start spouting off with ridiculous rhetoric!!
You'd best hope they find that we can live on Mars because, eventually, that may be our only answer because we're certainly ruining this planet fast enough!!
By the time the fuel savings from your hybrid or electric car pays back the premium you will have paid for it (even with the government subsidizing it), it will be time to replace the batteries that represent 30% of its cost, and you're screwed again.
And Didi, I hope you're not driving anywhere or living in a house or eating or drinking anything while you live in your pristine state, because if you are then you're contributing to the environmental destruction just as much as everybody else. We are called consumers because we consume. And the "agriculture" that you're concerned about losing is one of the biggest contributors to the destruction of the environment and always has been.
RC: I could say the same to you.....we all are guilty of overusing our environment. I'm not alone. I try hard to do my best, but sometimes it's difficult. As for "pristine" California...no it's not pristine, but we try (as do most states). As for your comment about agriculture being destructive....what do you want us to eat if not vegetables, fruits, etc? A lot of the agriculture in California is changing over to organic growing; i.e., no polluting spraying, etc. I know a lot of people are now buying from local "farmer's markets" rather than grocery stores when it comes to their produce, and every little bit helps. It's showing our agriculture belt (central California) that growing more organically will give them a better market for their produce. At least we're trying.....but it will take time.
By the way, I drive a Honda Fit, so I don't use much gas....and I only drive a short distance to work. On week-ends, I "bunch" my errands into one trip to save as much as possible. My husband drives a hybrid, and we are saving to trade one in for an electric car in the future. We also grow most of our own vegetables and fruit in our very small backyard (thanks to old wine barrels which have been cut in half and recycled to use for growing veggies). We drink tap water, which comes from an aquifer in our city, which is lucky to have it's own water supply (we don't use water from the Caifornia aquaduct). We also use ceiling fans in lieu of our central air/heat to cool our home. So, we do our best to limit our environmental footprint when we can......too bad most people can't say the same. We all need to do what we can....even if it's a small amount.
Yeah Didi, your state is doing so well. Pretty soon every CA city will be bankrupt.
"We're losing our trees, our agriculture, etc. because of environmental problems". Sure you are.
You liberals just kill me (and every economy you control).
James, it doesnt matter what kind of car you buy, when they start taxing you per mile, its coming!
Oh NO, not another fire..
You'd almost think they had these things planned out way in advance.
Yet if they put the fire out quickly, fix all the damage in say a months time everything will be right back to normal but it won't be, The price increases will stick around for who knows how long this time and will most likely they'll have another problem of some type very soon following so its time to just bend over and enjoy again and again and again.
Plus since falls approaching the switch to producing heating fuels will affect the price even further so we have that to look forward too, so fun.
I am glad that no one was injured or killed due to this price increase, uh fire.
Well well well how do you like that? Now I bet the price of gas will go up? give me a break! The oil copanies are gonna have some 'splainin' to do Lucy!
Looks to me like OWS is working overtime. The left wing eco weenies wanting pay back committing arson on the big bad oil companies.
See how that works there liberals? Conspiracies can work both ways. Bet when all the smoke clears(no pun intended) it was arson from the eco weenies, with Obama at the head of the pack!
tea1959 - Except I don't recall seeing any OWS "left wing eco weenies" wandering around the refinery lately. Makes it tough to blame them when they don't have access but you go ahead and screw that tin-foil hat down tight okay?
I thought only farmers allowed to emit such quantities of air pollution.
Actually the libiots are, every time one of them opens their pie-hole!
Chevron is being fined for pollution. But the fines are so small and their profits so huge that they sometimes don't bother to fix things and just add the fines to the cost of doing business and raise prices.
Several times during my career in the chemical process industry I headed up teams charged with determining what caused a particular accicdent, several of them very catastrophic with multiple loss of life. I have no doubt both recent refinery incidents will be fully investigated by the companies and by OSHA's Chemical Safety Board. Most of you will trust neither of them. Unless we learn from accidents they tend to repeat themselves. Those of you who believe big oil people are the scum of the earth, please t hink about this. They are card carrying capitalists, and that is why many of you hate them so much. What kind of capitalist would intentionally put hundreds of millions of dollars of operating equipment that generates high profits at risk. Very few indeed. So get real all you folks out there who see sinister things going on here. As some have noted, if there are gasoline shortages and spikes in pricing it may well be due to all the rules brought to us by the Government in an effort to hump corn production so we all can have ethanol in the gas tank. Hello, it's a gas tank, not an ethanol tank. And there are the folks at EPA with their rules which contribute to things like regional shortages, because as far as I know you can't willy nilly tank truck the Illinois blend out to the Bay Area.
Spot on. If you want to solve the problem then figure out a way to take the money from the rich oil people, without the government being involved.
Or you could get some cheese to go with the whine.
What kind of company would destroy millions of dollars of equipment on purpose? The kind that knows they will rake in millions more by destroying it and rebuilding that what it would generate while operating. Like an oil refinery.
Part of the problem is that refining has been a terrible biz to be in for decades now--very poor profits.
No they wouldn't. Quit with the rants please. You don't have to stage an accident at a refinery, they will happen naturally.
Here is the process of refining oil and it is extremely dangerous, 800 C is very hot, 700kPA is very difficult to maintain. This isn't a software process where we pretend that there is a product at the end of a process, this is a real serious chemical process. You don't screw around with the process, people who invest in your company get upset and you get fired from your high paying job. Really. So everyone who thinks that there is a conspiracy, please take a nap and you will fell better afterwards.
Oil is refined by thermal cracking which is a process that uses heat (~800°C) and pressure (~700kPa) to break down, rearrange, or combine hydrocarbon molecules.
Your post was so well reasoned and logical, I'm amazed that it has'nt been collapsed yet.
KUDOS! At last someone with some common sense!
All of you who go around blaming the "big bad oil companies" need to stop and think. Just how many things that you use on a daily basis are petroleum bi-products??????? Your laptop, your keyboard, your cell phone, IPad even clothing items, oh and for you that ride bicycles what do you think your bicycle tires are made from??????? You with Hybrid cars how much of your cars have plastic in them.....hmmmmmmm I have no problem in recycling, in fact we do ALOT of recycling at our house including composting etc. If the government would let the Oil companies build more refineries we wouldn't have to rely on foreign oil.
Oh come on with the paranoid rants! When you crack oil you heat the oil to nearly the point of vaporization (or maybe it is vaporized). Any screw ups in the process an explosion is the result. These refineries are operated at very high efficiencies since no more are being built.
On the other hand, no crisis should be wasted as President Obama's team has pointed out, as a result prices will go up.
What are you going to do about it? Buy a Prius C? Get an electric vehicle? Please, stop the BS.
They will fix the plant, everyone will wish for the days of 4 bucks a gallon and the oil companies will make even more money.
Don't know about you but I like going 70 miles an hour on the freeway for as long as I want to. And I like flying anytime I want to. And I like really cheap products from China floated here on ships that cost almost nothing to operate. Plastics are cool, but take heat to process. Glass on my technology stuff is awesome as well, oh look it takes heat to make glass.
Here is how civilization works: You extract oil out of the ground, you put it on a ship or in a pipeline, you then heat the oil to a high temperature to uncompress the energy out of it (and sometimes it explodes) then you send it to gas stations, power stations and so forth. Then people buy it. People buy the stocks of the energy companies.
Finally the government takes your money at the point of the gun puts it into solar and then the companies go bankrupt and their friends make a lot of money. The government friends then take the money and use to buy oil, fly in private jets and drive expensive cars while laughing at you sucker.
Get used to it. What are you going to do about it? Get our little shotgun out and commit suicide by police when they gun you down or live out your life in a 12X12 cell.
Don't think so. Quite whining and figure out how to screw the oil people out of their money. That is capitalism.
does anyone know what happened?
i will assure u that it isn't staged. no one wants to put their life at that kind of risk.
if it is what i've heard, they can buy the feed stock for the other units on the open market and continue to produce w/o one crude fractionator. if they have additional crude units, this will be like a turnaround and production will just be reduced.
one comment was layoffs...quiet the opposite...more will be employed for the repair and the unit crews will be working overtime to prepare the unit for work.
To think it was 'staged' is pretty damned ignorant. (Not that you are James, just say'n) These are typically very dangerous operations especially for shutdowns, restarts and maintenance. A lot of things can go wrong and when they do it can be very serious. Imagine working with thousands of tons of 'hot gasoline' all the time. And most or all of US refineries are very old adding to the problems, sure many upgrades take place over the years but the industry as a whole has been money tight--low profit--making upgrades all the harder to justify.
LOW PROFITS???? Maybe you should look at the news once in awhile. They have been reporting record profits for awhile now. Dont go around telling people that low profit BS as it dont fly.
LEFTISTREPORTING
"Record profits" could be one penny on a million dollars invested give the sorry history of the refinery biz. You don't know what your talking about. In any case, I'm not referencing months, but decades.
Fuel sounds like he works for the petroleum industry. Stupid pedophile...
1badrott
I'm going to pretend your an adult for a second--As an industrial contractor I have worked at more sites and types of industries then I can count, I came VERY close to working for a few weeks at this very plant about 15 yrs ago. So yeah you could learn from ppl like me if you were capable of challenging your own narrow preconceived notions--big IF tho huh?
...
The oil companies are vertically organized and control the price from the well to the pump. They control the price going into the refineries and going out. It's all about paying taxes. They artificially set the refineries up to look bad in order to not pay taxes on profits while making their profits elsewhere, like on Wall Street.
This fire is in the crude distillation unit. That is the very first unit the crude goes into. So the output blends have nothing to do with it at all.
This fire was likely caused by what causes most refinery fires. Poor maintenance by the bean counters running the place and/or shoddy workmanship by the non Union people doing the maintenance in there.
There is a round of refinery expansions and upgrades that has been going on for 6 years now around here. This refinery is the last one and there is a huge project under way now. For a few years there was so much work that they were pulling people out of retirement to fill the job slots. Skilled labor is that valuable.
Hmm. I wonder if they will call me to come back to work for this one. That's a tough call. This refinery is very dangerous because Standard Oil the people running the place from the CEO down are seriously evil pond scum. They got caught bribing people and got their permit pulled a couple of years ago. They threatened to shut down the refinery and ship the whole damthing to China. They finally gave in and everyone went back to work until now.
The funny thing is that even though this is in the San Francisco Bay area prices will rise everywhere. This is capitalism in action. Bribery and corporate welfare.
Is the implication that Union workers are harder working, more efficient or more knowledgable in some way? Far from my experience and that of most of my friends.
Never fails. Always some sort of refinery fire/explosion/broken lines, blah blah blah! Just jack up the price of gas and quit staging these "explosions" all for the sake of raising the price of gas! How stupid do you think we are? Greedy corporate gas mongers!
Well at the moment '1badrott', you sound pretty damn stupid.
And you're a faggot @!$%#ing pedophile...
Hehehe. Yeeeup!....didn't take long for you to show your colors did it? I bet your what?--about 11 yr.s old? My foolishness for responding to such childish comments in the first place.
Adults respect other opinions. But in your case there was no reason to attack my opinion as being stupid. Call me out, that's fine. But when YOU start calling others stupid, then you are no better. Care to disagree with others is fine as long as you're constructive about it and pointing out where the error in other opinions lie. But, just because our opinions fail to line up with yours doesn't mean your need to belittle our understandings. I withdraw my name calling to you because it's the right thing to do but I would hope you would do the same, if you say you are adult about it. But, I still stick to my contention that these refinery mishaps seem too staged (and I'm not the only one who thinks this). Respects to you sir...
Knee jerk thoughtless comments are not always respectable. I was careful to parse my words to counter your comment not you personally. Perhaps I should have emphasised the "'at the moment you sound...'" qualifier? Anyway--prior to this last post you went on to exceed my lowest expectations. Happy to see you can control your self. ((Just for my own silly curiosity--how old are you?))
Further--What I'm getting at is we ALL say dumb things sometimes and hopefully embarrass ourselves and learn from it. So to say a STATEMENT is stupid doesn't preclude the 'speaker' from being brilliant...just that they said something dumb in one particular instance and are rightly called on it. Even Einstein said things publicly that he later regretted.
55 going on 12. Sometimes a hot head but willing to apologize when I go off on a rant! Now, tell me...why does it seem that oil refineries have all this trouble around the same time every year? I can almost guarantee you that the Carson plant here in SoCal will have another hiccup around the Fall season. So you see, we're a little jaded here in Cal because we have some of the highest gas prices around (so-called California formulation driving the pumps).
I don't off hand remember what their maintenance schedule preferences are, but my best guess (assuming your observation is correct) is that they do shut-downs, fuel type adjustments, restarts,etc., more during certain times of the year. But I'm telling ya it's amazing to me that they get away with the extreme hazards they deal with even most of the time. Imagine welding for weeks on systems with explosive vapors inside--and all around you. (just one example) I have not been associated directly with the biz in a long time but it IS unavoidably treacherous, just plain scary.
Fuel, I understand your point, but I still stick by my opinion. And I still don't like being called not just stupid but "pretty damn stupid" by anyone. I will respect your opinion to disagree with my point. Isn't what this board is all about? Anyway, have a nice evening...regards!
Opened my eyes on the welding part...YES, that is scary.
Roger that. Good night, my pleasure! :)
I also don't need to recant my posts...I called it as I saw it, difficult or impossible to not take personal even tho I try not to go there.
Scary it is, and I still weld on 'dirty' (with petol products like diesel vapors inside) fuel vessels to this day, sometimes I get shaky when I first get started. And I have extinguished more potentially devastating if not dangerous fires then I can remember. I just think ppl should have some perspective and respect for the extreme hazards that some ppl deal with every day. Cop or fireman is a cake walk in comparison.
Doing hot taps can be dangerous, but when the rules are followed there should be no problems.
The danger comes from not following the rules. Those rules were written in blood.
1badrott,
You shouldn't argue with an idiot. It makes you one of them.
Amazing and the government does absolutely no investigating for price fixing.....another Obama burden we all share...
Nothing to investigate. All the price fixing takes place when the mercantile exchanges set the value of crude. It's fixed, and right out in the open. And the only thing the oil companies have to say about it is the quantity of contracts they want to order.
But hey, if you want to feel some self-righteous indignation..don't let logic, or refinery economics stop you.
Before you know it will all be driving electric cars because will have no choice........
Where do we get the electricity? Environmentalists don't want nuclear, coal, oil or natural gas. Wind and solar won't cut it.