KUWAIT CITY, 1 November 2004 — Kuwait’s three oil refineries, which have an output capacity of 920,000 barrels a day, halted production yesterday due to a total power cut that hit the emirate, a Kuwait National Petroleum Co. spokesman told reporters.
“The three oil refineries stopped operating gradually after the power cut (which hit) the country”, said Muhammad Al-Hajeri.
Shortly before Al-Hajeri’s statement, state-run Radio Kuwait, cited the Energy Ministry as announcing that the country had been hit by a total power blackout due to a “technical fault that is being repaired”.
Al-Hajeri said that units in the three refineries were gradually put out of operation, without reporting any incident or fire.
The refineries of Al-Ahmadi, Mina Abdullah and Shuaiba in the southern region were expected to be back in operation at least 24 hours after regaining their power supply, Al-Hajeri said.
The blackout, the first of its kind in Kuwait in more than 13 years, started at 1300 local time (1000 GMT) due to a technical fault resulting from periodical maintenance of a main transformer.
The government however categorically denied any sabotage or terror attack.
“The blackout was the result of a technical breakdown and it has nothing to do with sabotage,” Maj. Waleed Al-Ghanim, the Interior Ministry spokesman, told reporters.
Energy Ministry Undersecretary Saud Al-Zaid told Kuwait Radio that an investigation was launched to know the exact cause of the technical disorder.
A senior expert however told reporters that the feeders which supply power to the transmission network stopped working, which resulted in knocking out four of the five huge power generation and water desalination plants in Kuwait.
Al-Zaid said later that two of the four plants were put back into operation as power supply was restored to several residential areas. He expected that electricity will be back in the emirate at around 1500 to 1600 GMT.
