http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/bp-confirms-oil-leak-in-southern-lake-michigan-b99233193z1-252283721.html
BP confirms oil leak in southern Lake Michigan
By Reuters
March 25, 2014 1:10 p.m
An unknown amount of oil leaked from BP Plc's Whiting refinery in
Indiana into Lake Michigan after a mechanical glitch on Monday
afternoon, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
The discharge had stopped and the leak was contained, the London-based
company said in a statement on Tuesday.
No injuries were reported, and the effect on Lake Michigan was not
immediately clear. About 60% of the lake is covered in ice, according to
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
BP has laid down boom on the water to keep the leak from spreading and
said the oil was in a cove between the refinery's wastewater treatment
plant and a steel mill.
Crews were working on the cleanup on Tuesday. The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, the Coast Guard and state regulators were at the scene.
Winds were pushing the oil onto the shore, while cold temperatures were
causing it to harden into a waxy consistency, making it easier to
collect, BP spokesman Scott Dean said.
Dean declined to say how much oil was released.
The largest crude distillation unit at the 405,000-barrel-per-day
refinery was back to normal operations after a malfunction led to the
leak, Dean said.
The 260,000-bpd crude distillation unit, called Pipestill 12, was the
centerpiece of a $4 billion refit of the Whiting refinery completed late
last year to run large amounts of oil from Canada's tar sands fields in
Alberta.
A crude distillation unit does the initial refining of crude oil coming
into a refinery and provides feedstock for all other units at the plant.
The refinery has been increasing the amount of Canadian crude oil
running through Pipestill 12 during the first quarter of this year.
Environmental groups opposed the BP upgrade, saying use of the Canadian
crude would increase pollution from the refinery into Lake Michigan.
The Whiting refinery is the primary focus of BP's U.S. refining strategy
to use only plants in the northern United States that have in easy
access to Canadian crude oil. BP sold plants in Texas and California
last year as part of the strategy.
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