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29 March 2024

Gas leak kills 4 at Kuwait main refinery

Published
By AFP

Four Asian workers were killed and two employees injured in a gas leak on Saturday at Kuwait's largest refinery of Mina al-Ahmadi, a top oil executive said.

"What happened was a gas leak at the Gas Liquefaction Unit during maintenance work ... not an explosion," as reported earlier, said the CEO of national oil conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC), Faruq al-Zanki.

An investigation committee has been formed to probe the cause of the leak which killed the four Asian workers, Zanki said in a statement cited by the official KUNA news agency.

The four people killed work for a private contractor, national refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) and KPC subsidiary said in a separate statement.

The two injured workers were discharged from hospital after treatment.

An industry source earlier told AFP that three firemen were also wounded in the incident.

The refinery continued operations as usual and there was no impact on Kuwait's oil output and exports.

Two opposition MPs called for an immediate investigation into the incident, with Islamist MP Waleed al-Tabtabai calling on Oil Minister Mohammad al-Baseeri to step down.

Kuwait's oil workers trade union claimed the main cause of frequent incidents at Kuwaiti refineries was "the use of cheap and unqualified labourers" by contractors hired by state-run oil companies.

The trade union called for an investigation into alleged "corruption" in hiring contractors and awarding contracts.

Mina al-Ahmadi is the largest of three refineries in OPEC member Kuwait, with a refining capacity of over 460,000 barrels per day. The other two at Shuaiba and Mina Abdullah have a combined capacity of around 450,000 bpd.

Kuwait pumps around 2.9 million bpd of crude oil whose income makes up more than 94 percent of the Gulf state's revenues.