BP Raises Estimate on Bad Gasoline

Chicago Sun-Times

August 30, 2012

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 after inspecting its distribution system, BP spokesman Scott Dean said.

Motorists can type the street address or intersection where they filled up from Aug. 13-23 in a searchable online database to see whether the station received the tainted gasoline. They also can search by city or ZIP code. The database, at bpresponse.com, contains only those gas stations that received the tainted gasoline, including stations with the BP sign and independent sites that buy their gasoline from BP.

Of the total gas stations, 300 are in Illinois, 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% are from Indiana residents and 29% 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.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she will meet with BP officials Friday about the recall. She said she is concerned 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 because 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 each station’s underground storage tanks.