Jamaica yesterday scurried to Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela for finished petroleum products after an explosion and fire at the government's Petrojam oil refinery put the plant out of commission and raised the prospects of scarcity in the local market.
Officials could not immediately give the cause of the explosion and what was described as a "small fire" in one of the refinery's processing towers, but said that the incident happened at about 12:10 yesterday morning.Although the fire was quickly extinguished by employees, with some assistance from the Jamaica Fire Brigade, it forced the indefinite closure of the refinery's operation.
No one was hurt in the incident.
Phillip Paulwell, the energy minister, said that existing stocks of refined petroleum products would not satisfy domestic demand beyond next week, so Jamaica had appealed to Caracas and Port of Spain for supplies.
"The governments have pledged their full cooperation and assistance," Paulwell told the Observer last night. "We are expecting imports to supplement what we have."
An oil tanker was already on its way to Venezuela for refined products, which should reach the market by weekend, Paulwell said.
Yesterday's fire was the second to have significantly disrupted operations at the 35,000 barrels-a-day refinery in less than three years.
In November 2000, shooting orange flames, over-laid by billowing, black smoke rose from the refinery in a fire that destroyed a storage tank and extensively damaged two others.
In the two years before that, there had been three significant fires at the refinery, which officials said were all isolated incidents rather than a pattern relating to safety or operational issues.
Subsequent to the November 2000 fire, the refinery was closed for several months for an overhaul, although this was apparently not related to the accident.
Ironically, the fire comes at a time when Petrojam's parent, the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ), has advertised for possible partners and financiers for a proposed US$160-million expansion of the refinery, which would at least double its capacity.
The project would include the installation of a catalytic cracker that would allow it to refine heavy crudes, of the kind available from Mexico and Venezuela, from which Jamaica can source oil under the preferential San Jose Accord.
According to Paulwell, Petrojam could not quantify the full extent of the damage to the refinery or the financial loss to Petrojam. Neither could he give a timeline for the refinery's re-opening.
The Petrojam board would conduct an investigation into the fire, Paulwell said.
"It is early days yet," he told the Observer. "We are doing the assessment both in terms of the cost of replacing the tower that has been destroyed and the timeframe that it will take to re-establish, so that we can re-open as soon as possible."
He said a team of American engineers would arrive in Jamaica next week to help in the review and reconstruction process.
Meanwhile, service stations said they foresaw no fuel shortage in the coming weeks and warned motorists against "panic".
"Petrojam has ensured us that it has strategic, critical supplies stored to ensure the continuity of their supplies," said Lynden Heaven, the new president of the Jamaica Gasoline Retailers Association (JGRA).
"I have absolute confidence in Petrojam," Heaven added. "The company has served us well over the years even in critical times and we are sure they'll do so again."
