South Bay : Bad Moon Waning Over Jinxed Refinery

If bad things happen in threes, officials at the Ultramar oil refinery in Wilmington may finally breathe a sigh of relief.

In March, the company, which processes 90,000 barrels of oil a day, had a fire in one of its tanks. A few weeks later, a crane that was installing a new piece of equipment on the property tipped over and landed on Anaheim Street.

And Friday about 9 a.m., an unexplained explosion in machinery that processes crude oil sparked a fire, causing one of the refinery’s stacks to discharge a plume of yellow smoke.

“It seems like they’ve been in the news a lot lately,” noted Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Robert Collis.

The company’s fire brigade had the blaze under control by the time city firefighters made it to the factory. Ultramar officials say the fire was not toxic, although some people may have objected to the smoke or its unpleasant odor.

There were otherwise no injuries--except perhaps to Ultramar’s reputation.