Fire at Marathon's Galveston Bay refinery, operations unaffected

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – Firefighters were tackling a blaze at Marathon Petroleum's 593,000 bpd Galveston Bay refinery in Texas on Thursday morning, according to company officials.

The fire started at a sour water tank at the plant's power unit and was still burning in the early hours of Thursday, although no injuries were reported and operations are expected to continue uninterrupted.

"At about 4 p.m. CDT (2200 GMT) a fire was reported coming from a vent on a tank, which triggered an explosion in a second tank at the Power 2 unit," company officials were quoted by local media.

"The firefighters are developing a plan to extinguish the fire that continues to burn in the second tank."

There was no impact to air quality outside the refinery, the officials added.

Sour water is wastewater produced in refinery process units, contaminated mostly with ammonia and hydrogen sulphide.

The company restarted a reformer at the plant only last month after a deadly blaze knocked the unit offline in May.