WHITING, Ind. (AP/WANE) — BP’s sprawling oil refinery in northwest Indiana was hit Thursday by a power outage that prompted the company to shut it down and evacuate workers, authorities said.
That shutdown could results in a price cycle where prices at the pump could go up to $3.19 or as high as $3.29 a gallon according to GasBuddy’s Head of Petroleum Analysis Patrick DeHaan. Prices in Fort Wayne are currently well below $3 a gallon according to the GasBuddy’s website.
Initially, only employees who work at an office building at BP’s Whiting refinery were evacuated. But BP later decided to evacuate all employees out of an abundance of caution, Whiting Mayor Steve Spebar told The Times of Northwest Indiana.
Roads near the refinery were also shut down, and the refinery complex, located along Lake Michigan about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Chicago, was flaring its stacks in response to the outage, the city of Whiting said in a statement.
“This flaring is a safety release to burn off the extra product and is a normal process during an event,” the city said. “BP is working to resolve the power outage as quickly as possible.”