Fire at Phillips 66 Louisiana refinery out, no injuries: official

By Erwin Seba and Liz Hampton

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A fire that started in a processing unit on Monday at Phillips 66’s 260,000 barrel per day Lake Charles refinery in Louisiana, has been put out with no injuries reported, an emergency management official said.

The fire started when a heater tube failed as a hydrogen unit was being shut down at the plant, according to sources familiar with operations. A Phillips 66 representative did not immediately comment.

Local media had earlier said that the fire broke out around midday.

The Lake Charles refinery primarily processes heavy, sour crudes at the facility, as well as some light crude. The refinery relies on a mix of U.S. Gulf Coast streams as well as foreign crude, including barrels from Colombia, Mexico, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Cash crude and products prices remain unchanged after news of the fire, dealers and traders said.

According to a Genscape report, all monitored units remained online by early afternoon.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton and Erwin Seba in Houston, Writing by Catherine Ngai in New York; Editing by Tom Brown and Sandra Maler)