(Adds details of incident, background)

By Irasi Jimenez

WILLEMSTAD, Curacao, Sept 29 (Reuters) - The cat cracker unit at a 320,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery on the island of Curacao suffered a problem over the weekend, prompting officials to warn residents about pollution, a refinery statement said.

The refinery, operated by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, warned residents on the small tourist island in the Caribbean that "lost catalyst" on Saturday could cause respiratory problems and eye irritation.

It was not clear how much operations at the refinery were affected by the problem that occurred in the key unit, the cat cracker, when workers started to restart it after it went offline earlier this month.

Dating to World War One, the Isla refinery on the island just off the Venezuelan coast, faces growing complaints by residents and several lawsuits charging that its industrial emissions cause health problems ranging from chronic coughing to cancer.

For years, refineries run by PDVSA, Venezuela's largest company, have suffered accidents or outages.

Curacao is a territory of the Netherlands.

(Writing by Saul Hudson; editing by Doina Chiacu)

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