MOSCOW (MRC) -- An explosion and fire rocked the Chevron Refinery in El Segundo on Tuesday night, prompting a call for residents to shelter in place as thick black smoke billowed into the sky, as per FireNewsFeed.
The blast occurred about 10:45 p.m. on the west side of the refinery complex along Grand Avenue near Vista del Mar. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
El Segundo police officers advised residents to shelter in place and close their windows. No evacuations occurred. Vista Del Mar Boulevard was shut down between 45th Street and Grand Avenue, according to the El Segundo Police Department.
Flames reportedly burned some power lines, causing big electrical flashes and sending some of the lines falling to the ground.
Firefighters from El Segundo, Los Angeles city and county, Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach were battling the flames. Television helicopters showed firefighters pouring water and foam onto the flames.
By 11:30 p.m., the fire appeared to be out, but firefighters were continuing to pour water on it.
The flames came close to storage tanks on the Chevron property, but firefighters kept them from spreading.
The Chevron refinery, just south of Los Angeles International Airport, is the largest refinery on the West Coast. It has the capacity to produce 290,000 barrels of gasoline per day. About 150 storage tanks greater than 30 feet in diameter are located on the property, according to its website.
As MRC informed earlier, in July 2016, USD36.8bn expansion of the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan, the largest investment by private sector oil companies this decade, has been given the go-ahead by Chevron of the US, bucking the trend of delays and cancellations resulting from the slump in crude prices since mid-2014.
Chevron is the second-largest US oil group by production and market capitalisation, after ExxonMobil. Chevron Phillips Chemical (part of Chevron), headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas (north of Houston), US,l is one of the world’s top producers of olefins and polyolefins and a leading supplier of aromatics, alpha olefins, styrenics, specialty chemicals, piping, and proprietary plastics. Chevron and Phillips 66 each own 50% of Chevron Phillips Chemical.
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