Posted on 08/30/2022 7:51:47 AM PDT by bitt
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has temporarily suspended a federal rule for fuel sales in four states, including Indiana, in response to a fire that occurred at an oil refinery in Indiana last week. It is feared that the incident may cause disruptions in both gas pricing and supply, AP reported.
“As part of the Federal Government’s response to a fire and shutdown at the BP Whiting Refinery in Whiting, Indiana, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan today issued an emergency fuel waiver to help alleviate fuel shortages in four states whose supply of gasoline has been impacted by the refinery shutdown,” EPA said in a statement.
“EPA has waived the federal regulations and federally enforceable State Implementation Plan requirements for fuel volatility on gasoline sold in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to facilitate the supply of fuel in these areas. This waiver will continue through September 15, 2022,” according to EPA’s news release.
Oil & refined products analyst, Patrick De Haan said, “the waiver allows winter gasoline to be sold, and allows more components to be used in gasoline, thereby increasing the amount of available supply. Still no restoration timeline on BP restarting its refinery.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
And thats where monkeypox is from.
Official admission that they’re in the way.
There’s no rebuilding that refinery. Cost way too much. More likely to be cheaper to close the refinery and expand another BP refinery. It would take 5 or more years to replace that refinery.
Opinion and not fact…. In my past life before retiring, I ran scenarios like this for several refineries so just an educated guess.
I had assumed based on early info that only one unit was involved, one of three (?) crude units. If this was accurate, then it would be likely that the refinery could restart at reduced capacity in some sort of near term.
Oh…. One other thing…. About half of the town of Whiting is the BP refinery. There’s not much town.
More components?
Sounds like more ethanol.
Blend up more e15 (or higher), sell it out of the e10 pumps and screw up a bunch of ICE cars and trucks.
.
From what I understand, the fire damaged electrical equipment, not the refining equipment itself.
How revealing! The EPA’s regulations are harming us. During this period of stress they are willing to lift them. But later of course they will reinstate them to continue to harm us.
Oh wait - Biden's drawing the reserves down to help democrats get elected...guess we're screwed again... never mind...
How convenient.
How convenient
I guess 22% are Amish.
Nice. MTBE is ring rot and useless as **** on a ****.
Just buy an electric car.
Bitt: ".. a fire and shutdown at the BP Whiting Refinery in Whiting, Indiana, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan
today issued an emergency fuel waiver to help alleviate fuel shortages in four states
whose supply of gasoline has been impacted by the refinery shutdown,” EPA said in a statement."
“EPA has waived the federal regulations and federally enforceable State Implementation Plan requirements for fuel volatility
on gasoline sold in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to facilitate the supply of fuel in these areas.
This waiver will continue through September 15, 2022,” according to EPA’s news release."
Oil & refined products analyst, Patrick De Haan said, “the waiver allows winter gasoline to be sold, and allows more components to be used in gasoline,
thereby increasing the amount of available supply.
Still no restoration timeline on BP restarting its refinery.”
(My Comment) : This BP refinery is the 6th largest refinery in the Untied States, and supplies many of the mid-western States, especially those identified in the article.
The US is already short on refineries for fuel/energy production and this incident could further jeopardize future financial petroleum investments.
Glad to see that the EPA is willing to make this adjustment in time for the harvest season.
I’m guessing a deliberate act of class warfare.
I was there just last month for their perogi fest. Lots of white blood flowing around there.
They should just increase the supply of electricity!
Electrical and controls are bundled together. Depending on the scale of the damage, 1-6 months to repair. That's a wild ass guess BTW….
The people on the ground probably have enough preliminary information by now to know the broad scope of work and a rough estimate of timing and $$$.
First, the equipment, lines and electrical has to be cleared and locked down. There are checklists for doing this 1,2,3. This is underway now. Next, detailed inspections will be made of the affected areas and specific equipment. It is not likely that inspections are limited to electrical and controls. I assume there will be mechanical and perhaps structural inspections as well.
Existing drawings will be used to as a reference and methodical field inspections take place. Typically, teams of engineers and senior operators do the field inspections. Findings are tracked by drawing number and exact item reference number in drawings. The drawing number and exact item number traces back to item specifications. All this is compiled and now a package is put together to provide to contractors. BP will have contractors on contract already.
One class of contractor is likely to already on site. These would be be providing routine maintenance or involved with a capital project at the facility. These kinds of folks could get crews into the crude unit quickly, which would be very useful for the inspections and initial demo.
In addition to an emergency shutdown of the affected crude unit, there would be some number of additional units that probably tripped into emergency shutdown. Each of the units will also have to inspected before restarting. There are existing checklists for this. There will some components that could require replacing due to damage and other items such as rupture disks that are single use.
It could be advantageous to bring a different type of contractor to support this project if the scale of work gets too large for locals to handle on the schedule required. There are a very small number of elite contractors that can flat slam crafts, equipment, expediting, management, engineering, etc. into a high priority project. This is when $$$ is no object.
Good idea, ‘cause generating plants nev er have to shut down.
Good thing we have the Strategic Oil Reserves, huh!
~~~~~~~
groan! they are killing us....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.