Fire not to hit performance, gas supply: RIL

Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday said the fire at its Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat will not affect its financial performance and the supply of oil products.

A major fire on Wednesday, had only forced the shutdown of the vacuum gas oil hydrotreater and a diesel hydrotreater and all other units were operating at full capacity, RIL's Jamnagar refinery site president P K Kapil said in an e-mail to employees.

"There will be no impact, whatsoever, on the financial performance of the refinery, or for that matter in the final products," he said.

Kapil refuted reports that the fire would create LPG shortage in the country, saying there would be no shortfall in product availability and the refinery would meet all its commitments.

"It is not correct that the country will be deprived of LPG," he said. Meanwhile, one contract worker, reported missing after the fire was found dead.

Another company employee, who suffered more than 60 per cent burn injuries, was moved to Mumbai for treatment. The fire damaged vacuum gasoil hydrotreater unit No. 2 and the company also shut down the adjacent diesel hydrotreater unit No. 2 as a precaution.

Hydrotreaters remove sulphur from petrol and diesel. Sources said Reliance has constituted two task forces - one to put in operation the destroyed unit and the other to investigate the cause of the fire and suggest preventive measures so that such incidents are not repeated.

Meanwhile, state-run Indian Oil Corporation has floated a tender for importing five LPG cargoes of of 13,000 tonnes each to meet any likely shortfall in LPG arising from the RIL fire.

The Jamnagar refinery supplies one-fourth of the about 11 million tonnes LPG demand of the country and a 10-15 day shutdown of a unit at the refinery is feared to create supply shortfalls.

A RIL official however said such fears were unfounded as the fluid catalytic cracker unit that gets its feedstock from the vacuum gasoil hydrotreater was operating normally. The refinery had also boosted output at the other vacuum gasoil hydrotreater to make up for the shortfall.