Confirms fire extinguished.
Emergency crews have extinguished a fire this morning at ExxonMobil's 557,000 b/d refinery in Baytown, Texas, following a "major industrial accident" that injured four.
The fire broke out around 2am ET today on a unit that processes gasoline components, according to the company. Hours earlier refinery workers found a leak in a bypass line involving a desulfurization unit, according to a report to state regulators, which led to flaring. Refinery crews decreased operating pressure on the leak location and put a repair plan into action to isolate the leak, according to the filing.
Desulfurization units remove sulfur and other contaminants from a refinery's process stream.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office described the event as "some type of explosion". The fire was extinguished around 10:30am ET and air quality monitoring is ongoing along the fenceline, ExxonMobil said in an update this morning.
The Baytown complex also houses petrochemicals operations — it has 1.13mn t/yr of propylene capacity spread across an olefins cracker and the refinery and 3.82mn t/yr of ethylene capacity at the olefins unit, along with associated downstream elements.
Earlier this week, a loading valve fault within a coker unit led to increased emissions at Baytown.
