Incident Report

Subject:           Russia - Rosneft halts 340,000 bpd Ryazan refinery after fire

Date of Email report:   Thu 13/02/2014

Report Detail:

MOSCOW: Rosneft, Russia's top oil producer, said it had halted oil product output at its 340,000 barrels per day Ryazan refinery after a fire late on Wednesday caused by a railcar crash.

The plant, located some 200 km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, is a key supplier for the Russian capital's fuel market.  The company said several railcars had decoupled from a locomotive and then had rolled backwards to crash through the gates at the plant, leading to a fire. It said no one was hurt in the incident at the refinery, one of the Russia's largest.  "Due to safety reasons, the (plant's) units are switched to circulation mode, which is planned for an emergency," Rosneft said in a statement.

Rosneft said the fire was completely extinguished by 0500 local time (0100 GMT) on Thursday. A spokesman for the company declined to say how long the shutdown would last.

Last year, the plant refined 17.3 million tonnes of oil, produced 4.1 million tonnes of diesel and 3.3 million tonnes of gasoline.  Rosneft had planned to carry out maintenance at the plant, bought together with Anglo-Russian TNK-BP oil firm last year, in April.

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