As of this past Saturday, officials with the Department of Transportation have officially declared a regional emergency that will affect a total of four states in the Midwest in the wake of a fire that happened earlier this week that has ended up causing an “unanticipated shutdown” of an oil refinery for BP working in Indiana.
BP Whiting, which is the sixth largest refinery within the United States and refines over 400,000 barrels of oil per day, was forced to shut down to be sent through a damage assessment after a fire took down the plant’s cooling water and electrical power systems this past Wednesday, as reported by Reuters. This shutdown sparked officials within the federal government to take action and deal with the now quickly approaching shortage in fuel output that will affect Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which are stated that will collectively get just over 25% of their total fuel from the Whiting refinery.
“This Declaration addresses the emergency conditions creating a need for immediate transportation of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel and provides necessary relief,” explained the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in a release.
This particular emergency declaration allows these states an exemption from a few federal regulations, the primary of which is the waiving rules for U.S. truckers that set a limit on maximum driving times. However, once truckers go back to normal rules and operations in the wake of providing emergency assistance, they will be forced to take a mandatory 10-hour break if they go over 14 hours via emergency relief, as stated by the FMCSA.
Various sources explained to Reuters that the restart date for the closed refinery is still entirely unknown as all of its units would need to be officially examined for damages and repaired. Christina Audisho, a spokesperson for BP, stated this past Friday that the company was “continuing to assess when a restart of the affected units can take place.”
This particular shutdown has already caused ripples via increased fuel prices as CBOB, a fairly common grade of gasoline, went up over 30 cents for the Chicago area, and the ultra-low sulfur diesel went up by 17 cents. As reported by AAA, drivers from the four previously listed states are looking at gas prices of $3.87 per gallon.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) was quick to issue an executive eroder in the wake of the refinery’s shutdown which lifted various requirements for fuel transporters and “temporarily suspends certain laws and regulations to accelerate the transition to the fall fuel supply and takes advantage of existing stocks of fuel, contingent on the Environmental Protection Agency making similar changes.”
The order for Whitmer lasts for the entire duration of the emergency, or until the 15th of September. “The impacts of the outage at the Whiting facility will be widespread across our region, and I am taking proactive steps to help Michiganders get the fuel they need to drive their cars and help businesses keep their products moving,” explained the governor.
