Singapore - South Africa's 180 000 barrels-per-day Sapref refinery has shut one of its secondary units for planned maintenance which is expected to take about three weeks but which will not affect production, a company spokeswoman said on Friday.
The refinery in Durban shut down its visbreaker unit, used to reduce viscosity when distilling crude oil, from May 4, spokeswoman Cindy Govender said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
Sapref is jointly owned by Shell and BP.
Sapref manages a single buoy mooring, which brings crude oil into a 125 000 bpd refinery owned by Engen Petroleum.
The Durban single buoy mooring will be shut in the second week of May for planned repairs expected to last about two weeks, which include replacing floating and subsea hoses, Govender said.
Engen is planning to shut some unspecified units at its refinery between May 5 and May 24 due to the maintenance at the mooring.
Engen is majority owned by Malaysia's state oil company Petronas.