Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery confirmed that a power outage caused an incident at the refinery in Martinez, California Friday that spewed smoke visible from Concord Friday morning.
"A number of our processing units were taken offline and any excess hydrocarbon vapors were directed by pipeline combustion as a safety measure in the refinery's flares," said Mike Marcy, Tesoro spokesperson.
A Bay Area Quality Management District spokesperson said the dark smoke could be seen for miles.
Power was restored after about 20 minutes. No injuries resulted from the outage, Marcy said. Tesoro said odor patrols that scouted the areas surrounding the facility did not detect anything offsite.
"We regret the incident and any concerns it may have raised with our neighbors," Marcy told Patch.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.