BP, Dow Chemical plants in Texas City lose power as regional outages continue
(updated at 3:30 p.m. with information on Dow plant)
The BP chemical plant in Texas City, Texas, lost power on Wednesday morning, marking the latest in a string of outages for the area’s numerous plants and refineries - including nearby producer Dow Chemical.
According to Houston CBS affiliate KHOU, a Level 2 emergency was declared for Texas City after the BP plant lost power at about 4:00 a.m. local time on Wednesday morning.
Power was restored by about 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, said Bruce Clawson, director of Texas City Emergency Management. BP did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether operations had been restarted.
BP produces chemicals at the site including benzene, ethyl benzene, paraxylene, sulfuric acid and toluene.
The adjacent 437,080 bpd BP refinery – the third-largest in the US – had already lost power to many of its units earlier in the week, the company said.
The Level 2 emergency does not require a shelter-in-place and allows local schools to remain open, contrary to the Level 3 emergency declared on Tuesday morning.
That occurred following the first wave of outages, which began about 9:30 p.m. on Monday night and again at about 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
The power outages prompted BP, Valero and Marathon Oil to shut down their refining operations in Texas City, while Dow Chemical shut down equipment at its chemical complex, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The affected Texas City refineries have the capacity to produce about 5% of total US output. Meanwhile, the Dow complex produces chemicals including vinyl acetate monomer (VAM), butanol and isopropanol.
Valero and Marathon said they had resumed operations by Tuesday afternoon, but BP said on Tuesday that its Texas City complex had only limited power, and it had not restarted all units.
In a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), BP said it had begun restarting the ultracracker and refinery fuel gas system, expecting them to be fully operational by May 1.
Meanwhile, Dow said it experienced electrical supply problems again on Tuesday night, according to the Chronicle. A company spokeswoman said Dow would not restart units until it has a "higher level of confidence in the reliability of power supply".
Local power grid operator Texas New Mexico Power Co. told several media outlets that the failures were likely related to drought conditions in the region.
High humidity in prior days, coupled with the build-up of residue such as salt, caused equipment to fail, spokeswoman Cathy Garber told the Chronicle.
Rain can usually wash away such residue, but a lack of rainfall in recent months allowed residue to build up, she explained.
Texas New Mexico Power Co. officials used local fire department equipment on Tuesday to rinse off equipment, seeking to alleviate such problems.
BP was said to be flaring several units to burn off excess product.
On Tuesday, emissions related to the outages were said to be too high for instruments to even measure them, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the state’s environmental regulator.
Monitoring was again being conducted following Wednesday’s outage, reports said. Results were not yet known.
In other parts of Texas, severe weather this week has disrupted chemical operations.
DuPont’s ethylene facility in Orange, Texas, was partially shut down early Tuesday when a lightning strike led to a lack of steam, according to a filing with the TCEQ.
Meanwhile, Chevron Phillips Chemical reported flaring at one of its Sweeny crackers in Texas due to a process upset caused by a power outage, a TCEQ filing said.
Hot and dry conditions are projected for most of the region on Wednesday, offering a break to locations hit by severe weather but little relief to drought-stricken areas such as Texas City.
Comments