RIYADH, Nov 18: Twenty-eight people were killed and 12 others are missing after a fire broke out on a gas pipeline in an oil-rich desert area of Saudi Arabia on Sunday, one of the worst of its kind in the kingdom.

But officials said the blaze has not affected oil or gas production in Saudi Arabia, the Opec kingpin and world’s largest oil producer.

“Twenty-eight have lost their lives and 12 are still missing,” Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi told reporters in Riyadh. Five employees of state oil conglomerate Saudi Aramco are among the dead, the company said.

The incident near a major gas plant in the oil-rich Eastern Province occurred while Saudi Arabia was hosting a rare summit of the oil producers’ cartel in the capital Riyadh which wrapped up later Sunday.

The fire occurred “in a new gas line” and has had no effect on either oil or gas production by the world’s top oil producer and exporter, Nuaimi said.

An Aramco statement said it had confirmed “the deaths of 28 workers, including five company employees, so far,” suggesting the death toll may not be final.

Aramco said the blaze erupted on the Haradh-Uthmaniyah gas pipeline, 30 kilometres (18 miles) from a major gas processing plant at Hawiyah, as maintenance work was being carried out.

There was no immediate suggestion of a terrorist link in the incident.

The fire broke out at 00:25 am (2125 GMT Saturday) and was later brought under control, said Aramco, which runs Saudi Arabia’s oil and gas operations.

A high-level technical committee has been set up to probe the incident, it said.

Aramco said the site was being operated by a contractor, and the incident did not affect production or distribution.

“Necessary operational adjustments have been made to the gas system to normalise operations to ensure continuity of fuel supply,” it added.

An industry source who asked not to be named said the gas carried in the pipeline is fed into the domestic network, like all of Saudi Arabia’s gas production, and is not for export.

The fire broke out while workers were welding a plate on to the pipeline, the source said, adding that the gas plant was unaffected.

The Hawiyah plant is one of the major gas processing facilities in Saudi Arabia, built in the desert near the Al-Ghawar oil field.

—AFP