Kuwait oil refinery shut down and evacuated following fire

A KNPC source said that because of refined products in storage, the country’s exports would not be affected by the shutdown.

Smoke rises from a unit at oil refinery in Al Shuaiba, about 50km south of Kuwait City. Raed Qutena / EPA
Powered by automated translation

KUWAIT // Kuwait’s Shuaiba refinery was shut down and evacuated after a large fire broke out on Monday.

No one was injured in the blaze but firefighters and emergency teams were on high alert, an official at state refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) said.

Ahmed Al Jemaz, acting chief executive, said in a statement on the company’s Twitter account that the fire at the heavy oil cracking unit at Kuwait’s smallest refinery had been brought under control.

“No injuries were recorded so far. All the refinery’s units have been shut down and all employees were evacuated as a precautionary measure,” Mr Al Jemaz said.

A KNPC source said that because of refined products in storage, the country’s exports would not be affected by the shutdown.

It was too early to say when Shuaiba, which has a production capacity of 200,000 barrels per day, would be back to full operations and authorities would investigate the cause of the fire, the source said.

An industry source had told Reuters earlier that there was an explosion at Shuaiba.

Opec member Kuwait has three refineries with a combined capacity of 930,000 bpd.

The ageing coastal Shuaiba refinery in southern Kuwait, commissioned in 1968, is due to be mothballed after the new 615,000-bpd Al Zour refinery comes on line by 2019.

Shuaiba refinery produces light, medium and heavy products, including gas, ordinary naphtha, gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil and diesel.

Shuaiba produces around 2 million tonnes of gas oil and another 2 million tonnes of jet fuel, another industry source said, adding that while he did not expect much impact on gas oil exports, supplies of jet fuel could be disrupted.

*Reuters and Agence France-Presse