By Erwin Seba
HOUSTON, March 24 (Reuters) – Valero Energy Corp has shut its 380,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, following an explosion and fire at a diesel hydrotreater unit, people familiar with the plant operations said on Monday.
The fire has since been extinguished, and a shelter-in-place order lifted, according to the Southeast Texas Alerting Network.
The cause of the explosion at the 47,000-bpd 243-diesel hydrotreater unit was not clear. The blast could be heard as far as 11 miles (18 km) away, the sources said.
In an emailed response to Reuters, Valero confirmed a fire in a unit at its Port Arthur refinery and said all personnel had been accounted for.
Diesel hydrotreaters use hydrogen to remove sulfur from motor fuels during their production to comply with U.S. environmental rules.
Shutting the refinery was seen as necessary to contain the blaze and the refinery lost water supply and steam as firefighters worked to put it out, sources said.
Valero’s Port Arthur refinery, the company’s largest, is located 86 miles (139 km) east of Houston.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba in Houston; Ishaan Arora and Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Susan Fenton and Bernadette Baum)
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