KUWAIT, Feb 9: Kuwait state oil refiner decided on Friday to shut down its 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) Shuaiba refinery for 7-10 days due a fault in a heat exchanger in the its main crude unit, an official said.

We found a leak in the heat exchanger for the main crude distillation unit (CDU) and the decision was taken to shut it down for seven to 10 days to fix it, a senior oil official told Reuters.

The shutdown cuts the country’s domestic refining capacity to around 565,000 bpd, he said.

The Kuwait National Petroleum Co. (KNPC) official said Shuaiba will try to meet its export obligations from storage and KNPC’s two other domestic refineries.

We can run Shuaiba at a 120,000 bpd, but the decision was taken to shut it down completely to fully fix the problem.

Kuwait has informed some Japanese traders it will slash naphtha supplies for lifting next week by 50 per cent. It also told some Asian traders it will cut February lifting of gas oil and jet kerosene.

The Opec-member state oil sector has been under the microscope in recent days following a huge fatal explosion on Jan. 31, which forced a halt of crude output from its northern oil fields, knocking out 600,000 bpd out of an Opec production cap of 1.74 million bpd.

Oil Minister Adel al-Subaih has offered his resignation after the accident, which killed four people.

The fate of his resignation is expected to be determined in the coming few days.

Kuwait resumed production Thursday from northern fields not affected by the blast with 50,000 bpd, which it hopes would gradually rise to slightly more than 300,000 bpd.

It is currently meeting export commitments from storage and increased output from other oil fields in the east and south.

Kuwait crude oil production capacity reached 2.6 million bpd before the blast and the Gulf state has plans to further boost it output capacity to three million barrels per day by 2005.

A 280,000 bpd gathering center GC 15 was damaged in the blast along with a power sub-station and a main gas booster station BS 130.

The blast was the third fatal accident in as many years, with six people killed at the Ahmadi refinery and two in Shuaiba in mid-2000.

The country’s domestic refining capacity had exceeded 900,000 bpd. Following the Ahmadi blast it was cut by a half, but rose up again with the country’s largest refinery currently running at under 300,000 bpd.

Another senior KNPC official told Reuters earlier that an 80,000 bpd fuel oil unit at Ahmadi was expected to complete a 70-day maintenance plan in 7-10 days. The output is mainly used for domestic power generation.

Kuwait’s second largest refinery, Mina Abdullah, is currently producing at 265,000 bpd.

KNPC is the refining arm of state-owned oil conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp., which oversees the Gulf state’s hydrocarbons industry.—Reuters