MARCH 12, 2015
Exxon Mobil Corp said its fire brigade had quickly
extinguished a blaze Wednesday evening at its 155,000-barrel-a-day Torrance,
California, refinery, the site of a Feb. 18 fire.
The company said there were no injuries in the second blaze.
The local fire department also arrived at the plant to offer assistance, Exxon
said in a statement. Exxon did not specify where in the refinery the fire broke
out. The fire did not affect the refinery's current operations, according to
the company's statement.
Five investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board were
at the plant Wednesday to investigate the Feb. 18 explosion. They had just left
the plant when the blast occurred, according to Daniel Horowitz, a senior
adviser to the CSB.
The previous fire broke out in the refinery's
gasoline-producing fluid catalytic cracking unit. The company is still
operating the refinery at reduced rates after the previous incident.
Exxon told analysts last week that the unit that had the
previous incident was an emission controls device on a gasoline-making unit,
and that they were still securing and assessing that unit. Exxon said it had
parts of the refinery running crude and has plans to restart other parts next
month. Longer-term, Exxon said it has been working with regulators to determine
whether it can restart the unit without the emissions device.
Exxon did not immediately say whether the restart plans for
next month would be affected by the latest fire.
The United Steelworkers union, which represents refinery
workers at about 70 plants across the U.S., have been on strike for 39 days as
of Wednesday at 15 plants, including 12 refineries. Workers at the Torrance
refinery have not been on strike.