Marathon's Garyville refinery hit by fire, BP's Toledo set for extended shutdown

Quantum Commodity Intelligence - Operations have been disrupted following a fire at Marathon Petroleum Corp's refinery in Garyville, Louisiana, but so far the company has not commented on the extent of the damage.

According to Marathon's website, the facility along the Mississippi River has a refining capacity of 578,000 barrels per day, making it the third-largest in the country.

Wednesday's fire injured two workers, a company spokesman said, but was extinguished by Marathon Petroleum's own fire crews.

The same plant was rocked by an explosion in February of this year on the 110,000-bpd hydrocracker, a key unit that upgrades low-quality heavy gas oils from the atmospheric or vacuum distillation tower into jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported this week that BP had laid off most contractors at the 160,000 barrel-per-day Toledo, Ohio, refinery it owns with Cenovus Energy, indicating that the plant will experience a prolonged shutdown following last week's explosion and fire.

The more than 100-year-old refinery has been offline since the middle of last week following the explosion and will likely be shut for several months.