Guangzhou Petrochemical shuts 160,000 bpd CDU unit after fire

22-Mar-10

Guangzhou Petrochemical (a unit of Sinopec) has shut its 160,000 bpd crude distillation unit (CDU) after a fire when four pumps leaking oil were ignited. The cause of the leakage is still under investigation. Output from the rest of the 270,000 bpd plant remained normal, and no-one was hurt. The fire is expected to have caused a loss of several tons of oil. But indirect loss, including pumps and cables, is bigger. Besides the set of oil pumps that was destroyed in fire, there are two other sets of refinery oil pumps that can sustain production. The outage is unlikely to have a deep impact on either prices or supplies of refined oil products, which are amply available in China; as domestic fuel stocks rose for the fourth consecutive month in February.