The incident took place on Monday morning, June 25th at BP's Pinon compressor station near Bayfield, a small gathering hub for production from the company's San Juan basin.
BP is one of the top natural gas producers in Colorado, operating more than 1,500 wells. The Bayfield station, which handles about 30 million cubic feet of gas per day has been shut down and BP was unable to give a timeline for its restart.
BP's safety record has been in the spotlight since the 2010 Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 and resulted in the largest offshore spill in U.S. history (to read more about it, click here), and the Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 in 2005.
It is the third deadly explosion at one of BP’s facilities since 2005. It is still not clear what went wrong and whether it could have been prevented, but it won’t definitely add good points to BP’s records and reputation.