UPDATE 1-Petrojam back up to 90 pct capacity after accident

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By Horace Helps

KINGSTON, June 23 (Reuters) - The Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica's oil refinery is back up to 90 percent of capacity after a shipping accident damaged its pier but full repairs will take up to 18 months, a company official said on Tuesday.

"We are about 90 percent normalcy now," Winston Watson, managing director of the company known as Petrojam, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Kingston refinery's capacity is 35,000 barrels per day.

An oil ship, the M/T Great News, crashed into the refinery's loading dock on June 1, damaging several pipelines, smashing a heavy duty crane and briefly idling the refinery.

"We have done temporary repairs, which have allowed us to function, but the overall repairs are ongoing and we estimate that to take up to 18 months to complete," Watson said.

"The accident affected us badly and at one time we could not get any product in and had to make alternative arrangements," he said.

"We can receive crude through the temporary fixing of the dock and the refinery is operating as normal," Watson said.

Petrojam is Jamaica's only oil refinery and Jamaicans panicked after the ship, which is twice the height and width of the 200-foot (61-metre) dock, slammed into the dock. Watson said shortly after the accident that supplies were adequate and there was no cause for alarm.

"There is no chance of a run-out. We actually have enough inventories in storage and there is no need for panic. We have everything under control," Watson said a day after the accident.

Petrojam had still not arrived at an overall cost of the damage but hoped to notify its insurers soon.

"We should have all the costs in within another week. The engineers are still working on the final figure and should complete the assessment soon," Watson said.

Petrojam needs 4,000 feet (1,213 metres) of pipeline to repair the dock and it acquired the first 1,000 feet (303 metres) within days of the accident, the company said. The remainder has been coming in on a phased basis.

The pipelines are expected to cost US$150,000.

The Jamaican government owns 51 percent of Petrojam and the government of Venezuela owns 49 percent. (Editing by Jane Sutton and Christian Wiessner)