UPDATE 1-Shell says shuts Australia gasoline unit for months

(Adds updates, details)

By Fayen Wong and Luke Pachymuthu

SYDNEY/SINGAPORE, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said on Friday it will keep a gasoline-making catalytic cracking unit at its 85,000 barrels per day (bpd) Clyde refinery in Australia shut for several months following an unplanned outage.

The shutdown at Clyde and the partial closure of Shell's 125,000-bpd Geelong plant, have prompted the refiner to ship in hefty volumes of clean products from Singapore, which traders said could be largely gasoline, raising prices by $2-4 on Friday's Asian close.

"We've had an unplanned shutdown at the catalytic cracker unit and that has resulted in us having to bring forward our planned maintenance at Clyde," said Peter Scott, a spokesman for Shell's Australia unit.

"The cracker unit will be shut down for several months."

Reflecting the anticipated prompt demand and concerns over tight gasoline supply in Australia, shipbrokers said Shell had booked a total 120,000 tonnes of refined products in four medium-ranged (MR) tankers, one of which is carrying gasoline, from Singapore to Australia.

The four tankers total 120,000-150,000 deadweight tonnes (dwt) of clean petroleum tonnage, and all the cargoes are slated to load on Feb. 1, the shipping sources added.

"This came on the market today, it's fairly prompt, and rates were pretty firm too at around Worldscale 280-290 levels," a shipbroker said.