PTI

Ahmedabad, Oct 26: A huge fire at Reliance Industries' refinery in Jamnagar on Wednesday damaged a secondary unit at the facility, which the government feels could result in a shortage of about 1,00,000 tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).

While Reliance Industries (RIL) maintained that the fire would not affect operations at the country's largest refining facility, Petroleum Secretary M S Srinivasan said there was a likelihood of about 1,00,000 tonnes of LPG shortage and the government would bridge the gap through imports.    Editor's Choice

"The fire was only at one of the secondary units and other operations are not impacted," RIL President (Refinery) P K Kapil said.

In New Delhi, Srinivasan said: "We have been told by Reliance that the two crude distillation units (CGU) will continue operating normally and only the VGO (secondary processing) units will be out of operation for about 10 days."

The fire, in which one RIL employee was seriously injured, broke out due to a faulty valve, he said, adding that Indian Oil Corporation has already been instructed to arrange for LPG import to meet the shortfall arising from the accident.

"This morning at about 10.40 a.m. there was a fire in one of the secondary processing units (VGO Hydrotreater-II) of the refinery at Jamnagar," a company statement said.

One RIL employee is seriously injured and there were no other casualties, it said.

"The fire has been brought under control by Reliance Plant and fire fighting personnel in less than two hours. The exact extent of damage to the VGO Hydrotreater-II unit, which is one of the 40 units in the refinery complex, is being assessed," the release said.

"As a precautionary measure, the neighbouring Diesel Hydrotreating Unit-II has been shut down safely. We expect to re-start the same shortly. All other refinery units, including both the crude units and petrochemical units, are operating normally," the RIL statement said.

Meanwhile, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora spoke to RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani, who assured the minister that there would be no loss of production on account of the fire, saying it engulfed only a limited area.

Refining experts, however, were of the view that the fire may affect output from one of the two crude distillation units (CDUs) of the 33 million tonnes-a-year Jamnagar refinery as repairs may take a couple of weeks.

Jamnagar police said emergency teams rushed to the spot as soon as the fire alert was sounded.

People were evacuated and inflow of crude to all sections of the refinery was cut off following the fire, police added.

Leaping flames and a thick plume of smoke from the refinery site could be seen from a distance.