Kuwait's Shuaiba oil refinery is expected to restart operations "within days", a senior official at state refiner Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) said on Tuesday, after a fire at a heavy oil unit forced a total shutdown.

Ahmed Al-Jemaz, acting chief executive of KNPC, said the refinery's closure on Monday would not impact exports of refined products due to existing stocks.

"We have a big storage... any reduction in production will be compensated for from the storage and the other refineries," Jemaz told Reuters by telephone from Kuwait.

"Even during the (fire) accident, exports' operations were not affected," he said.

The fire at the heavy oil cracking unit at Kuwait's 200,000 barrel-per-day Shuaiba refinery had been brought under control on Monday afternoon. There were no casualties reported.

Opec member Kuwait has three refineries, including Shuaiba, with a combined capacity of 930,000 bpd.  - Reuters