Ronnie Lim Business Times 24 Nov 11;
(SINGAPORE) It's almost back to business as usual at Shell's Singapore facility - the oil giant's largest manufacturing site worldwide - following a Sept 28 fire at its Pulau Bukom refinery.
The blaze had caused it to shut down some plants, including three crude distillation units which form the backbone of its 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery.
While repairs are continuing on the island - including at the pump house which was 'ground zero' of the fire - traders told BT that the oil giant has since returned as a seller in the swaps market here in the last couple of weeks.
Shell has also lifted most of the force majeures for various product supplies it had to impose on some customers, a Shell spokesman told BT yesterday.
A Platts report earlier this month said, for instance that Shell Singapore - as well as Ellba Eastern, a joint venture between Shell and BASF - had ended their force majeure (FM) on styrene monomer supplies.
FM is a clause in contracts which frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary circumstance beyond the control of the parties occurs.
The Shell spokesman said, however, that there was no further update at this time to the group's earlier cited November/Dec- ember timeline for full resumption of Bukom operations.
An oil trader told BT that 'Shell has been quite active in the swaps market in the last couple of weeks, including in middle distillates, fuel oil and naphtha sales'. Based on the activity, he reckons that 'Bukom is almost back to normal'.
While Shell had restarted its third crude distillation unit (CDU) at the end of October, following progressive restarts of two earlier CDUs, a Reuters report said then that the 500,000 bpd refinery would be operating at just over 50 per cent at that stage.
Australia's Rotork, which makes valve control systems for the oil industry, meanwhile said this week that Shell had enlisted its help 'to assist in its recovery efforts'.
The fire had broken out in a pump house with a complex of many pipes leading to many light product tanks 'where, the moment one pipe is opened, it temporarily feeds the fire again', Shell officials earlier explained.
Rotork said that its Singapore office 'is now working to assist in repairing the damage, by initially helping Shell to actuate new valves for the most urgent repairs'.
'Rotork electric actuators installed in unaffected areas of the site are also being removed and shipped to the workshop for fitting to new critical plant replacement valves, while Rotork engineers assist with the on-site installation and commissioning of these actuated valves,' it added. New intelligent electric actuators have also been ordered for new valves to be installed at the site, it said.
Shell earlier indicated that it expects to book a loss of about US$150 million for the fourth quarter as a result of the fire.
