Denver-The restarting process was begun early last week at the Wynnewood Refinery near Oklahoma City, which was shut down by lightning-caused gasoline and diesel tank fires April 27, but according to local officials at parent Gary-Williams Energy Corp. it was still uncertain when refinery operations, including sulfur recovery, can be resumed. “We may be able to make a pretty good estimate in a couple of days,” reported GWEC spokeswoman Sally Allen. The fire started just before noon when the lightning hit a 50,000-barrel refinery gasoline storage tank. Later that night the fire spread to an adjacent 20,000-barrel diesel fuel tank. Anticipating a loss of power from lines passing near the burning tanks, refinery workers shut down the plant about midnight. The fires burned themselves out without incident the next day. There were no injuries and no environmental damage. GWEC described the effort as probably the largest sustained mutual aid response the area has ever experienced. An estimated 110 refinery firefighters and others from 15 mostly volunteer departments kept the fire contained to the two tanks. The Red Cross was on the scene throughout.

Washington-The U.S. Department of Justice reports that under a consent decree Rhodia Inc. will be required to pay a civil penalty of $2 million, of which $1 million will be paid to the U.S. and the rest divided among the City of Hammond, Ind., the State of Indiana, the State of Louisiana, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District of California. The decree further requires Rhodia to meet certain emission limits for sulfur dioxide and acid mist, and to comply with the New Source Performance Standards, Subpart H requirements, including performance testing and monitoring. The decree relates to violations of the New Source Review permitting and control technology requirements, as well as the New Source Performance Standards at six Rhodia sulfuric acid plants in Hammond, Ind.; Baytown and Houston, Texas; Martinez and Dominguez, Calif.; and Baton Rouge, La.

Washington-The Fertilizer Institute last week praised the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) for releasing a plan to increase oil and natural gas drilling in federal waters through 2012. The plan includes extending oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico south of an area known as Lease Sale 181. It also includes expanding oil and natural gas drilling near Bristol Bay in Alaska’s North Aleutian Basin and in federal waters off the coast of Virginia. TFI worked with other groups last year to pass legislation to rescind a 25-year ban on drilling off the coast of Florida. The legislation, which became law, is expected to redistribute $170 billion in federal royalties to states from the federal treasury. “TFI will continue to urge the agency to make more acreage in the Outer Continental Shelf available for development,” said TFI President Ford West. “However, that power ultimately lies with Congress, and Congress continues to keep more than 80 percent of the OCS off limits to drilling.”

Washington-The Fertilizer Institute reports that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has approved product testing data on phosphate and ammonia products generated by TFI and the European Fertilizer Manufacturers Association (EFMA) for inclusion into an international database of chemicals. The approval came at an OECD Screening Information Data Sets Initial Assessment Meeting (SIAM) in Paris, France. Acceptance of the data by the OECD provides further credibility to efforts to demonstrate with scientific data that fertilizer products are safe. “TFI completed its product testing program on 23 fertilizer materials in early 2003, demonstrating that all major fertilizer products are safe when used as intended and pose no harm to industry workers, community members or the environment,” said TFI President Ford West. “We are pleased at EPA’s sponsorship and the OECD’s approval for our phosphate and ammonia products in this internationally recognized forum.” The United States is the sponsor country for fertilizer products within the OECD process, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) served as the formal presenter for the TFI-EFMA data at the Paris OECD meeting. TFI was also present to provide technical support on the testing data. Successful adoption by OECD of these fertilizer products also confers regulatory approval through EPA’s High Production Volume (HPV) data challenge, and covers many of the important data points necessary in the current European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) program. EPA’s HPV Challenge program was developed to make publicly available a complete set of baseline health and environmental effects data on HPV chemicals. The data will provide the basis for better and faster decisions on which chemicals present risks and how to eliminate or manage these risks. It is EPA’s goal to assure that the public has access to health and environmental effects data for chemicals that are present in their environment. “TFI has been working to seek regulatory approval of this fertilizer product testing data both nationally and internationally and we thank EFMA for its assistance with this effort,” said West. “International approval for this safety data is essential given the globalization of the fertilizer industry and the increased efforts on the worldwide regulation of chemicals.” The nitrates and sulfate groups of TFI-EFMA fertilizer data are scheduled for OECD review in early November and fertilizer acids are scheduled for review in April 2008.