Incident Report

Subject:   Electrical Power Failure Sparks Tesoro Refinery Fire Hawaii                  

Date of Email reporting Incident:   18/02/2008

Report Detail:

Fire investigators said an electrical power failure sparked a fire at the Tesoro Hawaii refinery plant Saturday night. It happened around 10:30 p.m. on Komohana Street in the Campbell Industrial Park. All fuel production came to a halt as more than 40 firefighters fought the blaze for about two hours. The fire was contained to one of the processing units, which holds one of Tesoro's fuel-based products. "We're going to be trying to pump out some of the fuel in that processing unit so that we can bring those units back up online as soon as possible," said Nathan Hokama, Tesoro Hawaii. No word on what caused the electrical failure and how this will affect our fuel supply. Dozens of employees were at the plant. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

 
KALAELOA -- Tesoro Hawaii workers were attempting to gradually restart the processing units at its Kalaeloa processing plant today after a power outage caused a fire at one of the units late last night.  A Tesoro spokesman said the shutdown was not expected to affect the state's fuel supply. Tesoro is one of two refineries in Hawai'i. The other, owned by Chevron, also is in Kalaeloa's Campbell Industrial Park. "We don't anticipate any supply issues, fortunately, so that's a good thing," said Nathan Hokama, Tesoro spokesman. The company was still investigating what caused the 10 p.m. Saturday outage. It took about an hour for Tesoro and Honolulu Fire Department personnel to put out the fire and cool the processor so the fuel inside would not re-ignite, Hokama said. What type of fuel was being produced at the unit that caught fire has not been disclosed.  There were no injuries or evacuations caused by the incident. Power at the entire refinery was shut down until about 2 a.m. Hokama said. This afternoon, the company was gradually bringing the units back up. "Each unit has a different function and there are about a dozen major units," Hokama said. Some help distill imported crude oil while other units further refine the oil into gasoline, diesel oil, jet fuel, bunker fuel for ships and fuel oil for electrical utilities. About 95,000 barrels of crude oil are processed daily at the refinery, Hokama said. "Based on what (Tesoro executives) were told, there shouldn't be an impact to the supply because they do have an inventory in the tank farm," he said. The refinery is located at 91-325 Komohana Street on the southeastern portion of Campbell Industrial Park. The facility was constructed in 1972 and has been operated by PRI and BHP Petroleum. Tesoro took over the refinery, as well as retail gas stations and distribution facilities, in 1998. Six HFD engine companies and the HFD hazardous materials unit responded to the alarm, HFD Capt. Terry Seelig said. A command post was set up and HFD firefighters stood by as a precautionary measure as Tesoro workers started to bring power back to the refinery.