An oil refinery belonging to BP PLC in Whiting, Indiana received a bomb threat early Friday morning, a company spokesman said. An unidentified caller called BP at 7:30 a.m. EST to say a bomb was placed near the refinery's gasoline manufacturing section, said BP spokesman Scott Dean. Dean said the company evacuated nonessential personnel from the refinery, but that operations-which see more than 400,000 barrels of oil refined each day-were not affected. BP is cooperating with local and federal law enforcement, who are inspecting the premises, but no bomb has been found, Dean said. “It looks like a typical hoax,” he added. News of the threat helped push oil prices higher, moving the price of light sweet crude up by 97 cents to $58.85 a barrel.
