By Shubham Kalia, Shariq Khan and Raul Cortes
May 12 (Reuters) – Mexico’s state oil company Pemex was forced to partially shut down its 325,000-barrel-per-day Salina Cruz refinery in Oaxaca on Monday after a fire at the plant injured six people, according to a source familiar with the matter and industry monitor IIR Energy.
The issues added to a string of sudden refinery snags across North America, further straining global fuel supply chains that were already pressured by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Mexico is not directly hit by the waterway’s closure, but shortages of oil elsewhere have sharply raised competition for U.S. exports, the biggest source of Mexico’s fuel purchases.
A reformer, an isomerization unit, and four hydrotreaters were among the units affected at the refinery after an issue involving circuit contamination that impacted some utilities at the plant, IIR Energy said. Those units are tied to the production of diesel and additives blended into gasoline.
Pemex is expected to conduct inspections to assess the situation and current projected date for restart of the shuttered units is May 14, IIR Energy said.
Late on Monday, Pemex confirmed that a fire broke out in a cooling tower inside the Salina Cruz refinery, which it said had been fully extinguished. The company added that the six injured people, three of them Pemex employees, were taken to a hospital.
The fire occurred at the Hidros 2 plant of the Salina Cruz refinery during work to put a cooling tower into operation, the company said.
Asked about the outage at a daily press conference, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum read a statement from Pemex that operations were normal and supply of fuel to the surrounding regions would be guaranteed.
Pemex did not respond to a request for comment about the partial shutdown detailed by IIR Energy.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru, Shariq Khan in New York, and Raul Cortes in Mexico City; Editing by Tom Hogue, Louise Heavens and David Gregorio)
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