The tropical remnants of Hurricane Harvey caused the roof of a storage tank to collapse at Exxon Mobil’s oil refining and chemical campus in Baytown.
The industrial city east of Houston continued taking a beating from rain and floodwaters Tuesday. Exxon Mobil closed the nation’s second-largest oil refining complex Sunday but damage was still occurring.
The shutdown involves a surge of carbon emission releases to turn everything off on short notice, but the roof collapse potentially presented new problems.
Exxon described the incident as a partial sinking of a storage tank roof that is now stable. It isn’t creating any containment issues, the company says.
“This is an unprecedented storm, and we have taken every effort to minimize emissions and safely shut down equipment,” an Exxon Mobil spokeswoman said.
The eventual startup will create additional emissions issues.
Fifteen to 20 percent of the nation’s oil refining capacity is offline because of Harvey.
This first appeared on the Houston Chronicle – an Energy Voice content partner. For more click here.
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