Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) has announced emergency shutdown due to stoppage of water supply from Nethravathi river.

The company informed the stock exchanges on Thursday that the refinery was receiving around 5.5 million gallons a day from the river. Water availability in the river and its downstream dams started depleting from March-end.

As a result of this, Dakshina Kannada district administration enforced reduction of water supply to MRPL to one-third level. Water supply was completely stopped from Nethravathi river on Wednesday.

The company said that the reserve water availability in the refinery can meet the full load for one-and-half days.

“To overcome the situation and pulling on the resources for next couple of days till rainfall starts, it has been decided to shutdown the phase-II and phase-III and units with immediate effect. We will continue to watch the situation and initiate necessary action as deemed fit from time to time,” it said.  

The company has cautioned that its clients would suffer from short supply and MRPL may have to incur additional demurrage due to delayed unloading of crude.