Refinery fire may cause LPG crunch

Ahmedabad: Reliance Industries Ltd.'s Jamnagar refinery has been "completely shut" after a fire and is expected to be closed for at least 10 days, an official at the petroleum ministry said on Wednesday.

No injuries have been reported and the plant has been evacuated, a senior company official said.

Jamnagar police said that emergency teams rushed to the refinery as soon as the fire alert was sounded at around 1030 hrs IST. Prima facie, the fire appeared to have been caused by a spark.

Neraly 800 people were working in the refinery at the time of the incident and about 100 people were present at the site of the operation.

Reports said the fire has damaged a hydrotreater unit at the plant. A hydrotreater unit is used to remove sulphur in refining petroleum - one of the first stages of refining.

Reliance officials told CNN-IBN they are still assessing the damage and the refinery may be shut down from two weeks to one month. Production may halve during this period.

Petroleum Secretary said the refinery is likely to be shut down for ten days which may cause LPG shortage of one lakh tonnes.

Jamnagar is India's biggest refinery producing between 32 and 40 million tonnes of petrol and diesel annually.

It accounts for 24 per cent of India's refining capacity and produces 6,50,000 barrels of oil.

Production at the plant may fall to 16-17 million tonnes (MT). Current production at the refinery is 32-40 MT.

Reliance Press Statement: This morning at about 10.40 A.M., there was a fire in one of the secondary processing units (VGO Hydrotreater – II) of refinery at Jamnagar. One of the Reliance personnel is seriously injured. There are no other casualties. The fire has been brought under control by Reliance Plant and Fire Fighting personnel in less than two hours. The exact extent of damage to the VGO Hydrotreater II unit, which is one of the 40 units in the refinery complex, is being assessed. As a pre-cautionary measure, the neighbouring Diesel Hydrotreating Unit – II has been shut down safely. We expect to re-start the same shortly. All other refinery units, including both the crude units and petrochemical units, are operating normally.