* Sinopec says fire extinguished, no casualties
* Says will not affect petrochemical production (Updates to show fire has been put out)
BEIJING, April 13 (Reuters) – Sinopec Corp said on Thursday that a fire in a warehouse at a petrochemical and refining complex in southern China operated by one of its subsidiaries was put out at 2:20 pm local time and had not affected production.
Sinopec said in a statement the fire started at 9:55 (0255 GMT) on Thursday in a warehouse for synthetic rubber in the facility operated by Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Corp in the province of Guangdong. It said there were no casualties.
The Maoming plant is one of the country’s largest oil refineries, producing 360,000 barrels per day, and is also able to churn out 1.1 million tonnes of ethylene annually.
Part of the refinery was shut from March 20 for planned maintenance, a company source told Reuters previously.
Sinopec said it would investigate the cause of the fire and avoid similar accidents in future.
(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Joseph Radford)
