Kuwait | A fire in a gas liquefaction unit in Kuwait’s largest oil refinery left ten people injured on Friday, five of them seriously, the state-owned company that runs the site said.
“A fire broke out during maintenance operations at gas liquefaction unit No. 32 at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery,” the Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) announced on Twitter. gave details of the cause of the accident.
The fire left “ten injured, seven of them having been transferred to hospital” including “five with serious burns”, said the public company of this rich oil emirate in the Gulf.
A team of firefighters was dispatched and the fire was “completely brought under control” by midday, she added.
The KNPC assured that “the refining and export operations were not affected by the fire”, the affected unit being then already “out of service”.
The Mina al-Ahmadi site, located on the Gulf facing Iran about 40 km south of the Kuwaiti capital, had already been hit by a fire in October 2021, causing minor injuries.
The refinery, which is 10.5 square kilometers in size, began operations in 1949. It is the largest of the three Kuwait National Oil Company refineries. It produces about 466,000 barrels of oil every day.
A fourth refinery with a capacity of 615,000 barrels per day is under construction in Kuwait.
A major member of OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Kuwait produces around 2.4 million barrels per day and exports most of it.