BP lists stations that sold tainted gasoline
BY SANDRA GUY Business Reporter/sguy@suntimes.com August 29, 2012 9:46AM
BP station located on the corner of Deep Lake Road and Grand Avenue in Lake Villa. | Thomas Delany Jr.~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: October 1, 2012 5:03PM
BP said Wednesday it shipped nearly twice as much contaminated gasoline as it first reported on Monday — 4.7 million gallons — to 557 gas stations in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Ohio.
The company has recalled that gasoline and replaced it with the good-quality kind after inspecting its distribution system, said BP spokesman Scott Dean.
Motorists may type the street address or intersection where they filled up from Aug. 13 through Aug. 23 in a searchable online database to see whether the station received the tainted gasoline. They can also search by city or Zip code.
The database, at bpresponse.com, contains only those gas stations that received the tainted gasoline — both stations with the BP sign and independent sites that buy their gasoline from BP.
Of the total gas stations, 300 are in Illinois, including 61 in Chicago; 207 in Indiana, 49 in Wisconsin and one in Ohio. Motorists who purchased bad gas would have already experienced problems such as hard starting, stalling and rough idling, the BP spokesman said.
BP has started processing 9,600 complaints, of which 63 percent are from Indiana residents, 29 percent from Illinois.
BP has set up 159 call center operators and 140 claims adjusters to handle the complaints. Claims information is available at (800) 599-9040 or (800) 333-3991.
People may send receipts, credit and debit card records and repair bills electronically to an email address posted at bpresponse.com.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she will meet with BP officials on Friday about the recall.
She said she is concerned that residents may not know that gas stations such as Speedway, Road Ranger, Citgo, Meijer and Sam’s Club sell BP gasoline.
Dean said there is no way to know how much of the recalled gasoline was sold, since the amounts would differ based on how much gasoline a motorist purchased and other factors such as how much was blended with gasoline already in the gas stations’ underground storage tanks.
The gasoline is being reprocessed and shipped again in its proper form.
BP traced the problem on Monday to a processing unit at the Whiting oil refinery that was throwing off a bad ingredient called akylate into the gasoline supply, Dean said.
The gasoline was shipped from the Whiting refinery and from storage terminals in Des Plaines, Ill., Whiting, Ind., Indianapolis, Ind., and Granville, Wis.
To check a station, go to BP's site.
Contributing: Reporter Carole Carlson
