BP's Texas City Refinery Reports Emission Release at Two Units

By Christian Schmollinger

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc, Europe's second-largest oil company by market value, reported two emission releases at its Texas City, Texas, refinery.

In the first incident, the residual hydrotreating unit had a depressurization. A high-temperature reading on a catalyst reactor caused the safety systems to engage, leading to the depressurization, the company said in a filing to state regulators. The unit returned to normal after the depressurization.

The incident began about 11:12 p.m. local time and lasted 1 1/2 hours, the filing showed. About 1,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide were released through two different flare stacks.

A residual hydrotreater removes sulfur and other impurities from fuel oil.

The second incident occurred at the plant's fluidized catalytic cracking unit.

A large amount of volatile organic compounds was found in the unit's cooling tower from a leak in a heat exchanger, BP said in a separate filing. The company took the exchanger out of service to fix the leak.

The incident started at 4:54 p.m. yesterday and last about 8 hours causing the release of 100 pounds of butane and 100 pounds of propene.

A fluid catalytic cracker processes vacuum gasoil into gasoline.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Schmollinger in Singapore at christian.s@bloomberg.net.