ZAMBIAN fuel production is expected to be shut down for several weeks while urgent repairs are carried out after fire damaged the nation’s only oil refinery, officials said on Thursday. The shut-down is likely to affect copper production, Zambia’s main hard currency earner. The Energy Ministry said it will import processed fuel and may have to raise gasoline prices to meet additional import costs. A fire shut down production on Monday at the Indeni Oil Refinery in the central copper mining town of Ndola, 300km north of Lusaka. It also damaged the main pipeline from the Indian ocean port of Dar es Salaam in neighboring Tanzania. Mkandawire said the refinery was “adequately insured.” He has no estimate of the cost of the fire damage but said the damage was severe.