News of yet more accidents at oil and gas facility; refinery blaze in Kuwait forces 72-hour shutdown | ArabianOilandGas.com
source: http://www.arabianoilandgas.com/article-7430-refinery-blaze-in-kuwait-forces-72-hour-shutdown/
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A fire at a pipeline at Kuwait’s 270,000-b/d Mina Abdullah refinery yesterday injured two workers and closed the whole facility for a day, with three fire fighters also being evacuated from the subsequent extinguishing operations due to smoke inhalation.
"The fire was later brought under control and the refinery has today reopened, despite initial estimates that a 72-hour shut-down would be necessary. The blaze started at a pipeline belonging to the hydrogen production unit as it was being taken offstream for scheduled maintenance together with four other units. The standstill has not affected loading schedules at Kuwait’s export facilities or domestic supply depots, given ample amounts of refined products in storage," said Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East energy analyst at IHS Global Insight.
The incident is another reminder of Kuwait’s deep deficiencies when it comes to health and safety (HSE) standards, as well as the operational standard of mainly its downstream sector. "Apart from Iraq and Iran, where violence and/or long periods of international sanctions have depleted the industry’s technical, operational, and HSE standards, Kuwait’s hydrocarbons industry seems to have the dubious distinction of seeing the most workers injured or killed in the entire Gulf region," said Ciszuk.
To some degree this is down to the political deadlock that has been in place for the past decade, which has hindered the phasing out of Kuwait’s oldest Shuhaiba refinery and the thorough upgrade of its Mina Abdullah and Mina al-Ahmadi refineries. "It also, however, boils down to an inability to reform management practices and change the company culture within the state-owned industry, where relying almost completely on expatriates for all menial tasks means that company responsibility doesn’t necessarily have to extend very far after a worker has become incapacitated and left both his job and the country," added Ciszuk.
"The fire was later brought under control and the refinery has today reopened, despite initial estimates that a 72-hour shut-down would be necessary. The blaze started at a pipeline belonging to the hydrogen production unit as it was being taken offstream for scheduled maintenance together with four other units. The standstill has not affected loading schedules at Kuwait’s export facilities or domestic supply depots, given ample amounts of refined products in storage," said Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East energy analyst at IHS Global Insight.
The incident is another reminder of Kuwait’s deep deficiencies when it comes to health and safety (HSE) standards, as well as the operational standard of mainly its downstream sector. "Apart from Iraq and Iran, where violence and/or long periods of international sanctions have depleted the industry’s technical, operational, and HSE standards, Kuwait’s hydrocarbons industry seems to have the dubious distinction of seeing the most workers injured or killed in the entire Gulf region," said Ciszuk.
To some degree this is down to the political deadlock that has been in place for the past decade, which has hindered the phasing out of Kuwait’s oldest Shuhaiba refinery and the thorough upgrade of its Mina Abdullah and Mina al-Ahmadi refineries. "It also, however, boils down to an inability to reform management practices and change the company culture within the state-owned industry, where relying almost completely on expatriates for all menial tasks means that company responsibility doesn’t necessarily have to extend very far after a worker has become incapacitated and left both his job and the country," added Ciszuk.
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