WRAPUP 6-Blast rips through Mexico oil refinery, kills one

* One worker killed, two seriously injured in blast

* Refinery is Mexico's third largest, most sophisticated

* Pemex gives no details on operational impact

* Blast could force Mexico to boost fuel imports
(Updates with details on affected unit)

By Gabriela Lopez

CADEREYTA, Mexico, Sept 7 (Reuters) - An explosion ripped
through a major Mexican refinery on Tuesday, killing one worker
and pushing gasoline and diesel prices higher on worries state
oil monopoly Pemex [PEMX.UL] will have to import more fuel.

Pemex, the world's No. 7 crude producer and a large fuel
importer, said a 32-year-old engineer was killed and two
workers were severely burned when a compressor leak at the
Cadereyta refinery's gas oil hydrotreater unit triggered an
explosion and a fire.

Another eight workers suffered minor injuries. The fire was
quickly put out but Pemex did not say how operations were
affected at Cadereyta, Mexico's most sophisticated refinery and
its third largest, with a capacity of 275,000 barrels per day.

"We felt the windows shake. It was only a few seconds, but
the whole building shook," said Jose Luis Garza, a government
employee in Juarez, about 10 miles (15 km) from the refinery in
northern Mexico.

The unit, which supports gasoline and diesel production,
was shut down while the rest of the refinery kept operating,
Pemex said. The company is investigating the cause but did not
say what effect the accident may have on production.

U.S. oil product futures [O/N] jumped after the explosion,
before paring gains in afternoon trading.

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Full coverage: [ID:nN07216960]

Details on the affected unit [ID:nN07250590]

Factbox on Pemex refining operations [ID:nN07234898]

Graphic on market rally: link.reuters.com/xuz89n

Graphic on location: link.reuters.com/dew89n

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The explosion comes in a year marred by serious accidents
in the North American oil industry, including the Deepwater
Horizon spill, a major pipeline accident in Michigan and an
explosion at a Gulf of Mexico natural gas platform.

Hydrotreaters, which remove sulfur from fuels under high
pressure in the presence of explosive hydrogen gas, are a
critical component of modern refineries.

The unit was operating at the time of the accident.

FUEL IMPORTS

The blast could force Mexico, which already relies on
imports for more than 40 percent of domestic gasoline demand,
to significantly boost fuel imports.

Pemex, which imports fuel due to a lack of refining
capacity, bought 432,000 bpd of fuel from the United States in
June, making it the top importer of U.S. refined products,
according to the U.S. government.

"Mexico is already short of refining capacity and this will
make it even shorter," said Antoine Halff, deputy head of
research at Newedge Group in New York. "It could well raise oil
product prices as Mexico needs to increase imports."

A Gulf Coast products trader said it was "hard to gauge"
whether Pemex would pull more U.S. exports in the aftermath of
the explosion. "Pemex already moves a lot of cargoes off the
Gulf Coast," the trader said.

Pemex, struggling under a mountain of debt and rapidly
aging oil fields, is studying a plan to import crude oil for
the first time in over three decades to improve the
profitability of its refineries. [ID:nN20205847]

Oil exports account for about a third of government
revenues in Mexico, which is struggling with its deepest
recession since 1932.
(Additional reporting by Robert Campbell, Cyntia Barrera
Diaz, Miguel Angel Gutierrez and Catherine Bremer in Mexico
City and David Sheppard and Joshua Schneyer in New York,
Kristen Hays in Houston; Editing by Kieran Murray and David
Gregorio)