Indonesia gas pipeline explosion kills at least 7

SURABAYA, Indonesia, Nov 23 (Reuters) An Indonesian gas pipeline exploded near the city of Surabaya on Java island, killing at least seven people, officials said today.

The explosion -- which disrupted gas operations in the area -- occurred late yesterday in a part of the state-owned Pertamina East Java Gas Pipeline.

Win Hendrarso, chief of Sidaorjo regency near Surabaya, said dozens of people had been reporting missing. Eleven people were injured.

''So far, there are seven bodies that we have been able to get to up until the early hours of Thursday. One of them cannot be identified after being burned beyond recognition,'' said Basuki Hadimulyono, head of the national team for mud flow.

The incident happened in an area where authorities have been struggling for months to plug a mud leak stemming from an oil drilling accident that has inundated several villages and caused an environmental disaster.

Officials said most of those killed by the accident, which occurred at around 1800 hrs were military and other government personnel involved in trying to secure the mud flow.

Emergency officials dressed in orange jackets used boats to search the huge mud pool near the site of the explosion.

PIPES CRACKED Retno Rudi Novrianto, another official from the mud team, said it was likely the pipes cracked.

''Since the gas pipes are high pressure ones, it produced a big blast.'' A police official, who declined to be named, told Reuters earlier the pipeline problem had been contained as of late yesterday but did not indicate whether the pipe, which ran through the mudflow area, was continuing to leak.

It was not immediately clear whether the mud flow in the area had any link to the accident, but an official for the state oil and gas firm said there were long-standing plans to move the pipe, which runs right through the middle of the mud-affected area.

Indonesian television showed panicked residents fleeing the area in cars and on motorcycles.

More than 10,000 people have so far been displaced by the mud, gushing at a rate of 50,000 cubic metres a day from the well.

Experts say the mud leak could have been triggered by a crack about 6,000 feet deep inside an exploratory well drilling operation near Surabaya.

A Pertamina official said it would not have to import more diesel oil after a request from the state power firm for the fuel for use at power stations to make up for the lost gas.

A spokesman for PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara said the power firm had requested an additional 1,000 kilolitres per day of the oil product from Pertamina.

Australian oil and gas firm Santos Ltd. said today that the Maleo gas project, in which Santos has a 67.5 per cent stake, shut in production after the explosion.

Maleo gas, along with gas from other fields in the area, is delivered into the East Java pipeline.

Santos' spokesman Christian Bennett said it was too early to determine the expected duration of the outage.

But the news sent Santos' shares down as much as 3.3 per cent to a low of 10.80 Australian dollars, but they recovered to 11.00 Australian dollars by 0725 hrs.

REUTERS AKJ VA RAI1125