Washington Refinery News

An oil spill was contained at the Shell Puget Sound, Washington refinery's dock on Fidalgo Bay late on Friday, the company said in a statement on Saturday.The source of the crude spill was identified as a pressure relief valve on a barge and the source was secured, the company said, adding the spill volume was yet to be determined.About 20 gallons of oil was spilled when crews were transferring nearly five million gallons of oil from the barge to the refinery, local media reports said.Reporting by Sumita Layek

Second such cargo in a year - traders; cargo loads from Cherry Point, heading to Botany Bay. Oil major BP Plc is shipping diesel from the United States to Australia in an unusual shipping flow, several industry sources told Reuters on Thursday. The Jupiter Express carrying about 35,000 tonnes of diesel loaded from BP's Cherry Point, Washington refinery on June 29 and is currently headed to Botany Bay, New South Wales in Australia, shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon showed. BP declined to comment. Australia imports most of its diesel requirements from Singapore, South Korea and Japan but several refineries undergoing maintenance and prompt demand from India has tightened supply of the fuel in Asia, traders said.

Sheriff Craig Apple assured a room of concerned citizens that county emergency crews were prepared to handle an oil-train accident involving three or four tank cars. Firefighters have been training to combat railcar fires with foam, and evacuation plans are detailed in a 500-page emergency response plan, Apple told residents in a May 12 address. Albany's tracks handle as much as a fourth of the oil pumped from North Dakota's booming Bakken Shale, or up to several 100-car trains per day, each carrying 70,000 barrels. It is one of several spots along North America's new oil-by-rail corridors where residents and officials are restless, following six fiery derailments in the past 10 months.