An explosion hit one of the units at Kuwait's biggest oil refinery yesterday, causing injuries and damage, the official Kuwait news agency KUNA quoted a security source as saying.
The source said a gas leak was believed to have caused the explosion at the Mina al-Ahmadi refinery. It quoted the source as saying the blast caused "some injuries and other material damage". He said the situation was under control, but did not elaborate.
The state's Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) said recently it had completed a two-month maintenance programme at the 485,000 barrels-per-day refinery.
Earlier this month Kuwait National Petroleum Corp (KNPC) said two Kuwaitis were killed in an accident at Shuaiba refinery during maintenance to restart operations at a jet fuel unit shut since the 1990-91 Gulf War.
KNPC, part of KPC, operates Kuwait's three local refineries which have a production capacity of over 900,000 barrels per day.
The price of oil will collapse in the next five years and the "oil age" will come to an end, according to former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Yamani. In a Sunday Telegraph interview yesterday, he predicted that advances in new technology and a host of new oilfield discoveries will lead to "a future crash in the price of oil".
He said the collapse would come before the end of the decade and result in petrol consumption being cut by almost 100 per cent. "Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil - and no buyers."