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DURBAN: South Africa’s second-largest crude oil refinery, the Engen plant in Durban, has been closed to allow investigators the opportunity to uncover the cause of a “fire incident” earlier on Friday, Engen said.
Engen, which operates the 120,000-barrel-per-day plant and is majority owned by Petronas of Malaysia, said a fire broke out around 0510 GMT and was extinguished at 0645 GMT.
“Engen is currently evaluating its overall supply and demand position for bulk fuels and implementing immediate mitigations to manage product supply and inventory requirements,” Engen said in an update.
Local emergency services said seven people were injured, although Engen said no injuries were recorded and all refinery personnel were accounted for.
“I saw a huge fireball in the center of the refinery with thick black smoke coming out of it,” Durban resident Shane Lloyd Pretorius told Reuters.
Engen said in a statement that the cause of the fire was under investigation.
A Reuters witness at the scene saw several fire trucks spraying foam on the affected part of the refinery, as well as ambulances, metropolitan police and national police waiting.
Africa’s most industrialized economy has six refineries, four using crude oil and two synthetic fuels as feedstock. It is a net importer of petroleum products.
The third largest crude oil refinery in the country, a 100,000 bpd facility operated by Astro
n Energy in Cape Town also suffered an explosion earlier this year.
The main SAPREF refinery, which is also located in Durban and is a joint venture between BP and Shell, said the incident at the Engen facility had no impact on its operations.
The Engen Refinery and SAPREF are part of a major petrochemical center on the east coast near the port of Durban.
– Reuters
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