Technical Failure Forces Closure of Kuwaiti Oil RefineryKuwait's Al-Shuaiba Oil Refinery, one of the country's three major refineries, was shut down on Monday due to a technical failure, said an official of the Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC).Sami al-Rusheid, KNPC's executive assistant managing director, said that the accident occurred after completion of maintenance and during operation of the oil refinery, the official Kuna news agency reported. High temperature caused blockade of one of the refinery's pipes, forcing the closure as a precautionary measure, al-Rusheid said. He added that maintenance, which will take seven to 10 days, started immediately to clean the pipes which will enable the unit to work for another five years. Kuwait, which has a proven reserve of nearly 100 billion barrels of oil and produces about 2 million barrels of oil per day, has a total oil refining capacity of over 800,000 barrels a day. Al-Shuaiba Oil Refinery refines over 200,000 barrels of oil each day. The other two major refineries are Mina Abdullah Refinery and Al-Ahmadi Refinery. Meanwhile, al-Rusheid said that a minor leakage occurred in an exports pipeline in Al-Ahmadi Refinery last Saturday. But he said the problem has not affected crude oil exports and operation of the refinery, which was exposed to a massive blast last year. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |