* BP says expects minimal impact from late Wednesday blaze
* One worker taken to area hospital, but later released (Adds background, details)
HOUSTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - BP Plc said its largestU.S. refinery, at Whiting, Indiana, continued to operate onThursday morning following a blaze the night before that wasexpected to have a minimal impact on production.
One worker was taken to an area hospital for treatment, butwas later released, the company said.
BP said operations at the 413,500 barrel per day (bpd)Whiting refinery "were minimally impacted as a result of theincident and the refinery continues to produce products forcustomers."
The Whiting refinery is the seventh-largest refinery in theUnited States and the largest outside of the Gulf Coast.
The plant is the centerpiece of BP's shift over the past twoyears to emphasize using cheaper, heavy crude oil from Canada'star sands fields in Alberta.
In November, BP completed a $4-billion revamp of the Whitingrefinery to boost its intake of Canadian crude oil from 85,000bpd to 350,000 bpd.
On July 29, BP's Chief Executive Bob Dudley said during aconference call that Whiting had been refining 270,000 bpd inheavy crude oil in the second quarter of this year and couldlikely run up to 300,000 bpd.
In its statement on Thursday, the company did not specifywhich unit was affected by the blaze, but said it was located inthe north end of the refinery.
BP said the fire broke out at 9 p.m. Wednesday local time(0200 GMT Thursday). The fire was out by 10:55 p.m. local timeWednesday.
Firefighters from the city of Whiting were placed onstand-by to assist in battling the blaze, but the fire wascontained and extinguished by BP's firefighting unit at therefinery.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Mark Potter and PravinChar)