CHALMETTE, LA. — An explosion and fire at the Chalmette Refining facility in the New Orleans area on Friday left no injuries reported. Residents near the refinery said they heard the explosion at around 1 p.m.

The refinery is located in Chalmette, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of New Orleans. A fire broke out at an operating unit at the facility, and the St. Bernard Fire Department worked with refinery personnel to bring the blaze under control.

"Everyone working in the area is safe and accounted for," Chalmette Refining said in a social media post. The company said in the same post: "The cause of the incident will be investigated."

St. Bernard Parish said in a social media post that emergency response teams remained on site monitoring the situation. "No toxic chemicals have impacted the air quality," the parish said.

The refinery is owned by New Jersey-based PBF Energy and was built in 1915. It produces about 189,000 barrels of crude oil a day, along with specialty chemicals, and has 500 employees and 200 contractors. The refinery's daily production is around 1% of oil used in the U.S. on a daily basis.

PBF Energy did not immediately reply to a phone call or emails seeking additional information about what damage the fire might have caused to the facility, or to an email about whether the fire would impact the refinery's production.

Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president for energy and innovation at the University of Houston, said the incident could affect fuel prices in the region. "Some of the reasons why gasoline prices have stayed so high and continue to grow is because the crude prices are high, but also the refinery outages and this will add to that problem," he said.