Tuesday April 24 1:39 AM ET
Los Angeles Refinery Burns; Supplies May Be Hit

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A spectacular fire at a major oil refinery outside Los Angeles sent huge plumes of thick black smoke billowing over three cities Monday, forcing about 100,000
residents indoors.

The blaze -- in a coking unit of the 130,000 barrel per day Tosco Corp. refinery in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson -- was extinguished after three hours, said company spokesman Jeff Callender.

About 100,000 residents in three cities -- Carson, Wilmington and Long Beach -- were told to stay indoors with their windows closed but by mid-evening that ban was lifted.

Major streets surrounding the refinery were closed off but no injuries were reported in the blaze, which broke out shortly before 5 p.m.

Tosco is one of the largest independent refiners and marketers of petroleum products in the United States.

The fire, which comes after recent explosions at plants in the Caribbean and in Britain, sent U.S. gasoline futures prices surging more than 1.5 cents to $1.085 a gallon.

U.S. gasoline has been riding 10-month highs in recent weeks as wafer-thin stocks have fuelled concerns of a replay of last year's summer supply crunch, which led to a record spike in pump prices.

The Carson refinery and the nearby Wilmington plant are together known as the Los Angeles area oil refinery system and restarted operation in early February after extensive maintenance work during most of January.

Callender said the blaze had not immediately affected operations at Wilmington.

``At this point we do not know the extent of the damage. I can't say what impact this fire is going to have on our other plant (Wilmington) at this point,'' Callender told Reuters by telephone from the Carson site.

Tosco paid some $25 million last year to resolve lawsuits from a blast that killed four people at its Avon refinery in the San Francisco area in February 1999.

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