Shell Shuts Gasoline Unit at Pernis Refinery on Fault

By Nidaa Bakhsh

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc was forced to shut a gasoline-making unit at Pernis, Europe's largest oil refinery, after a fault occurred last night.

``The cat cracker tripped because of a mechanical fault and went offline,'' Shell spokesman Wim van de Wiel said in a telephone interview today from The Hague, where the company is based. Production of gasoline and components that go into the motor fuel have stopped as a result of the fault, he said.

The fault was detected around 8:30 p.m. local time yesterday and resulted in the release of a very fine grain-like sand into surrounding areas, Van de Wiel said. Shell, Europe's biggest oil producer, is investigating the cause, he said.

The refinery has the capacity to process 416,000 barrels of oil a day and is located near Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nidaa Bakhsh in London at nbakhsh@bloomberg.net