Refinery fire extinguished within hours
No injuries reported in blaze at Valero facility in Port Arthur
A heavy oil storage tank caught fire shortly before noon Tuesday at Valero’s Port Arthur Refinery, which had returned to almost 50 percent capacity after shutting down for Hurricane Harvey.
The fire started about 11:50 a.m., according to Valero public affairs manager Barbara Phillips.
Plumes of thick black smoke billowed from the tank as Valero emergency crews and three engines and a hazmat unit from the Port Arthur Fire Department responded.
Valero officials have not said how the fire started.
No injuries were reported, and all Valero employees were accounted for, Phillips said.
The city of Port Arthur issued a shelter-in-place order for residents on the west side of Port Arthur as a “precautionary measure,” according to Valero spokeswoman Lillian Riojas. Five Port Arthur ISD campuses were included.
The order remained in effect until the fire was put out after 2 p.m., according to a City of Port Arthur spokesperson.
No health issues or hospital visits were reported among residents, the city said.
The refinery has had eight Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspections since 2007. Its last inspection was in October 2016 and the refinery did not receive any violations or fines. However, the refinery did have seven violations from a 2007 inspection and was fined $5,000, according to OSHA records. It also received two violations from a 2009 inspection and was fined $10,000. Three of its inspections, including the last one, were based on complaints.
The Port Arthur Police Department blocked Texas 82 along Valero’s north side, and eighteen-wheelers and pickups lined the sides of South Gulfway Drive as motorists watched the fire.
Lakeside resident Kiara Baker, visiting her grandmother in Port Arthur, said she heard a loud “ba-boom” before she saw the plumes of smoke. As the fire progressed, she said she could smell the gas burning a few streets away.
“We could see the smoke from Houston Avenue,” Baker said. “And that smell. You could smell it everywhere.”
Other Port Arthur residents, already wearing masks while they stripped sheetrock from flood-damaged homes on West 13th and 14th streets, continued to pile debris on the side of the road as the fire burned.
The Port Arthur refinery was working at 40 to 50 percent of capacity after having shut down in preparation for Harvey’s landfall, Valero’s CEO Joe Gorder said Thursday. The storm also prompted four other Valero facilities — Texas City, Houston, Three Rivers and Corpus Christi — to reduce or shut down operations.
The Port Arthur facility can process 395,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to a December SEC filing.