El Palito Refinery in Venezuela Experiences FCCU Mechanical Failure

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--PDVSA's El Palito refinery (Carabobo, Venezuela), which has a 127,000-barrel-per-day (BPD) production capacity, experienced a mechanical failure in its 51,000-BPD fluid catalytic cracker unit (FCCU) on January 12, 2008. Other processing units in the refinery that work with the FCCU were also affected and were not able to continue working at normal rates.

The preliminary analysis of the status of the FCCU, which operates with UOP technology, was determined to have only suffered minor damage and is expected to be back online on January 22, 2008. PDVSA's authorities have said that there is enough stock to secure internal and external fuel demand.

On October 3, 2007, a failure was experienced in Venezuela's national power grid, which brought about inconveniences at El Palito refinery and affected the FCCU, which had to undergo a preventive turnaround that halted the 54,000-BPD continuous catalytic reformer and 18,000-BPD hydrofluoric alkylation units. For more details, view related October, 8, 2007, article -- Power Outage Affects PDVSA's El Palito Refinery.

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