KUALA LUMPUR: A fire that broke out on one of MISC Bhd’s chemical tankers early yesterday morning caused the partial shutdown at the giant methanol terminal in Labuan owned by Petronas Chemicals Methanol Sdn Bhd, a unit of Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd (PetChem).
According to announcements to Bursa yesterday, a fire broke out onboard the MISC-owned vessel Bunga Alpina at around 2.30am yesterday. The vessel was located alongside the PetChem’s methanol terminal when the fire broke out.
PetChem head of investor relations Wan Asmah Che Din said although the fire was contained only to MISC’s vessel, the group had to shut down the operations of the terminal’s Plant 1 for safety reasons.
“There was no damage from the fire to Petronas’ terminal but we had to shut down Plant 1 because of safety concerns,” she said. The methanol terminal has been in operation since 2009 with Plant 1 having a capacity of 700,000 tonnes and the other Plant 2 a capacity of 1.7 million tonnes.
“Based on preliminary assessment, the impact is minimal as it is limited to Plant 1 deliveries only. The operations of Plant 2 are not affected,” said PetChem in a statement yesterday. Wan Asmah also said that a gas receiving terminal housed in the facility was also halted for safety reasons.
The gas receiving terminal is shared between Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd and a third party which currently channels gas to the nearby Patau-Patau power station.
“We are in the midst of starting up the gas receiving terminal and expect it to be operational again by [yesterday] afternoon,” said Wan Asmah. “As for the Plant 1, we don’t know when we will restart it but we need to ensure everything is safe first before we do.”
Meanwhile, MISC said the impact of the fire incident is minimal as only one of the 29 vessels owned and/or operated for its chemical business was affected. However, several of the 38,000-deadweight-ton tanker’s crew remained missing.
“The vessel has 29 crew members of which 23 are Malaysians and six Filipinos. At present, 24 have been safely brought ashore whilst five are still unaccounted for,” it said yesterday.
This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 27, 2012.