An explosion at Gunvor Energy's refinery and fuel terminal in Rotterdam killed one person and injured several others on Thursday, according to media reports.

The blast occurred late in the morning at the facility, which is located in the industrial section of the port, Euronews reported on Thursday.

Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that a maintenance team had been working on a section of pipes at the time of the explosion. Neither a cause of the blast nor a timeline for restarting operations at the site was given in the initial reports.

A separate power failure also affected part of the port after a transformer caught fire. Several companies in the area halted operations and evacuated workers, with power gradually restored later in the day.

Gunvor Energy operates a terminal in Rotterdam with about 1.5 million m³ of liquid storage capacity for a mix of products, including crude oil, LPG, naphtha, gasoline, kerosene, gasoil, VGO, and fuel oil, according to the company's website. The refinery has been part of Gunvor's operations since 2012, when the trading house acquired the facility from Kuwait Petroleum, and the company has since announced plans to convert the plant toward production of biofuels from waste feedstocks.

Rotterdam is Europe's largest port and one of the world's major hubs for crude oil and refined product storage and trade. Gunvor Energy forms part of Gunvor Group, a Geneva-headquartered energy commodities trading company that ranks among the world's largest independent energy traders. Storage and refining assets of this scale sit at the center of fuel supply logistics for Northwest Europe, so the extent of any operational disruption at the site, and how quickly it is resolved, is a key point to watch as further details emerge.

Source: Ship & Bunker