Small fire quickly put out at Exxon Torrance refinery -official

HOUSTON, June 12 (Reuters) - A small blaze on Monday afternoon at Exxon Mobil Corp.'s 149,500 barrel per day (bpd) Torrance, California, refinery was quickly extinguished by the plant's in-house firefighting department, said a spokesman for the Torrance Fire Department on Tuesday.

"We responded to a fire at the refinery that already had been extinguished," said Capt. Steve Deuel of the Torrance Fire Department. "There was still some product leaking from a line."

No injuries were reported due to the fire, Deuel said.

An Exxon representative was not immediately available to discuss refinery operations.

Vacuum gasoil, an intermediate product, was leaking from the pipeline where the fire broke out, he said. Vacuum gasoil is usually produced by a crude distillation unit and is made into gasoline in a catalytic cracking unit.

The line, where the fire broke out, was a transmission pipe not associated with any specific unit, Deuel said.

"It ended up being more of a cleanup situation than a fire situation," he said.