A fire at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd's (MRPL) 15-million-tonne/year coastal refinery in Mangalore, Karnataka, has killed one worker and injured another, Oil & Gas Journal reported. The blaze broke out at a plant adjacent to the refinery's delayed coker unit.

The incident marks the second fatal fire at an Indian refinery this month, underscoring the operational risks facing the country's aging downstream assets even as operators push complex-crude processing to the limit to capture margins.

MRPL, a subsidiary of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC), has not yet disclosed the extent of damage to the affected plant or the timeline for any restart. The company has also not confirmed the identity of the deceased worker or the condition of the injured employee.

The fire comes at a sensitive moment for the refinery. MRPL has been working to restore utilization after operational headwinds in recent quarters, and any prolonged outage at coker-adjacent infrastructure would crimp the refinery's ability to process heavier, cheaper crudes — the core of its margin strategy.

The delayed coker is central to MRPL's configuration, converting residual streams into lighter, higher-value products. An extended disruption could force the operator to cut runs or lean on costlier light-sweet grades, eroding gross refining margins at a time when Asian complex margins remain under pressure.

Emergency crews extinguished the fire, and the refinery's other units are understood to be operating, though MRPL has not issued a detailed operational statement. A formal investigation into the cause of the blaze is expected, with India's petroleum-safety regulator typically requiring a root-cause review before damaged units can return to service.

The watch item: MRPL's unit-by-unit damage assessment and any disclosure on run cuts. Traders will be watching product tenders from the operator for early signals of how long the coker-adjacent plant stays offline.