No injuries reported after explosion and fire at New Orleans-area refinery

CHALMETTE, LA (ABC) — No injuries were reported after an explosion and a fire at a refinery in the New Orleans area on Friday, officials said.

Residents near Chalmette Refining said they heard an explosion at around 1 p.m. The refinery is in Chalmette, located about 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of New Orleans.

Chalmette Refining said in a post on social media that a fire broke out at an operating unit. The St. Bernard Fire Department worked with refinery personnel to bring the blaze under control.

“Everyone working in the area is safe and accounted for,” the company said. “The cause of the incident will be investigated.”

Officials with St. Bernard Parish said in a social media post that emergency response teams remain on site monitoring the situation and the refinery informed them that “no toxic chemicals have impacted the air quality.”

The refinery is owned by New Jersey-based PBF Energy, which did not immediately reply to a phone call or emails seeking additional information about what damage the fire might have caused to the facility.

The refinery, which was built in 1915, produces about 189,000 barrels of crude oil a day. It also produces specialty chemicals and has 500 employees and 200 contractors.

PBF Energy did not immediately reply to an email about whether the fire would impact the refinery’s production.

The refinery’s daily production is around 1% of oil used in the U.S. on a daily basis, said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president for energy and innovation at the University of Houston.

That loss of production while the cause of the fire is under investigation — combined with the oil shortage due to the war with Iran — will increase prices on gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the country’s south and mid-south area, Krishnamoorti said.

“Some of the reasons why gasoline prices have stayed so high and continue to grow is because the crude prices are high, but also the refinery outages and this will add to that problem,” Krishnamoorti said.