Singapore Exxon refinery partly shut after fire

SINGAPORE, May 3 (Reuters) ExxonMobil said it would shut some units at one half of its 605,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Singapore refining facility as a result of a fire that killed two people earlier on Thursday.

Spokeswoman Eva Ho said the fire, which occured earlier in the morning and had since been extinguished, would affect only the Pulau Ayer Chawan half of its integrated site on Jurong island.

''We will have to shut down some units,'' she said.''We continue to be able to meet our customers' demand because supply is not affected.'' An industry source familiar with plant operations said the company had shut down one of its crude distillation units (CDU) and was running the second one at a reduced rate. The capacity of the units involved was not immediately clear.

It was unclear which units had been affected and how long these would have to remain shut, or how much of the roughly 300,000 bpd site was still operating.

''Two workers have died in a fire at the plant,'' police spokesman Toh Boon Ngee told Reuters.

Exxon's Singapore refining complex, the fourth-largest in Asia, exports motor and other fuels to regional markets as well as selling to local sites and buyers in Singapore.

Police said the two injured workers are from Bangladesh and India. They are in intensive care with burn injuries. Police are still trying to confirm the identity and nationality of the two workers who died.

REUTERS DH BST0810