Royal Dutch Shell Plc will shut its biggest refinery over the next two days on an island off Singapore as firefighters battle a blaze for a second day, the worst fire at the site in 23 years.
“We are progressively shutting down the refinery over the next two days,” as a precautionary measure, not because of damage, Martijn van Koten, Shell’s vice-president for eastern manufacturing operations, said at an evening press briefing.
Loading wharfs away from the fire are still in operation though Shell has turned tankers away from berths near to the blaze for safety reasons, he said. He declined to give further details on which units were already shut after Shell yesterday said a hydrocracker was idled. There were no fatalities.
The fire at Pulau Bukom, 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) offshore the city, is still contained after the fire swelled at noon local time today, Shell said in an earlier e-mailed statement. Singapore is Asia’s largest oil-trading and storage center, with local product supply dominated by Shell’s Pulau Bukom, which can process 500,000 barrels a day, and refineries operated by Exxon Mobil Corp.
Singapore gasoil’s premium to Dubai crude rose to the highest in more than two weeks. Gasoil swaps for October traded at a premium of $17.31 a barrel over the Asian benchmark crude today, the widest since Sept. 12, according to data from PVM Oil Associates Ltd., a London-based broker. The premium was at $16.22 a barrel yesterday, PVM data showed.
“There’s a lot of fuel, it’s difficult to control,” said Victor Shum, senior principal in Singapore at Purvin & Gertz Inc., an energy consultant. “They probably can’t really run the refinery too much even at reduced rates for long.”
EIGHT FIREFIGHTERS
Two fire engines have been badly damaged and the Singapore Civil Defence Force is trying to prevent the blaze from spreading to storage tanks, the fire department said in an e- mailed statement.
Eighty firefighters are still battling the fire more than 24 hours after it broke out in a pump house, forcing the evacuation of about 400 workers, Shell said earlier. Processing units at the 50-year-old facility were shut as a precaution, boosting regional fuel prices, almost 23 years to the day after a fire killed a worker at the site.
Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, operates crude- distillate units at Pulau Bukom with a total capacity of 500,000 barrels a day, according to its website. The site also houses an 800,000 metric ton-a-year ethylene plant and a 155,000 ton-a- year butadiene-extraction unit.
HYDROCRACKER UNIT
The hydrocracker unit produces motor fuel, jet fuel and diesel. Shell is able to meet contractual obligations on deliveries, Lee Tzu Yang, the country chairman said yesterday.
The fire was burning “light fuel components,” within the area where it started, according to Shell. Smoke is being caused by hyrdocarbons that have not completely combusted, it said.
Gasoline and diesel fuel were burning at the facility, Mavis Kuek, a company spokeswoman, said at a news conference yesterday. One of Shell’s firefighters sustained an injury and five others experienced heat exhaustion and “pulled muscle,” the company said today.
“The pump house was where the burning started and where it remains,” Van Koten said yesterday. “No tanks were on fire.”
EXPORT-LED
The Pulau Bukom refinery, which includes a gasoline- producing fluid catalytic cracker and a hydrocracker exports 90 percent of its products, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
A Malaysian contractor was killed in a fire at the plant on Sept. 29, 1988, National Library archives showed.
Shell also has production facilities on neighboring Jurong Island, where refineries belonging to Exxon Mobil and Singapore Refining Co., a joint venture between Chevron Corp. and Singapore Petroleum Co., are located.
Exxon was ordered to stop work for a day at another Singapore refinery in March after a 34-year-old worker was killed during plant maintenance.
Singapore’s onshore inventories of residues including fuel oil and low-sulfur waxy residue dropped 2.42 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 21 to 18.86 million, the lowest in 10 weeks, based on data from a unit of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Stockpiles of middle distillates, including diesel and kerosene, rose to a five-week high.
No comments:
Post a Comment