by Jason Moore
Monday, December 29, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A major fire broke out at an oil refinery in Valdez Sunday night. It started at the Petro Star refinery near the pipeline terminal at about 10:45 p.m.

Workers escaped injury, but the plant is now closed, creating a potential pinch for those who rely on the jet fuel and diesel produced by the plant.

Roy Hansen watched the fire from the city dock.

"There were flames just shooting way up into the sky," he said in a phone interview. "You know how tall them tanks are -- I think they're about 30 feet tall -- you could see the tank farm off to the left of the flames, and the flames were jumping way past the tops of those, like at least three times the size of the tank farm."

Petro Star is a subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. The company is not saying how the fire started or the extent of the damage.

"We're currently assessing the situation," said Tara Sweeney, a spokesperson for ARSC. "We had a crew on the ground immediately, it was immediately contained by the crew that was working at the refinery and with the help of the first responders, but it was contained immediately."

On any given day the Petro Star refinery uses 48,000 barrels of crude oil, making more than 9,000 barrels of jet fuel and 3,200 barrels of diesel.

Much of the diesel is trucked to Fairbanks, and Arctic Slope now wants regulators to allow its North Pole refinery to increase diesel production to make up the difference.

"In order to utilize the full capacity of the North Pole refinery we need relief from the federal government to allow us to supply an increased amount of these types of diesel products from our North Pole plant," Sweeney said.

Neither the EPA nor the state Department of Environmental Conservation said they received such a request.

Meanwhile, DEC officials are monitoring a small oil spill as a result of the fire.

"It looks like in the way of oil spills about 200 gallons of crude oil was spilled and then there was 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of fire water, which is very lightly contaminated with oil," DEC spokesperson Gary Folley said.

The oil and contaminated water is contained on site.

The state fire marshal says two investigators are going to Valdez to assist in the fire investigation.

Contact Jason Moore at jmoore@ktuu.com