PDVSA's Cardon Refinery Pushes Back Planned Turnarounds for 2009

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--PDVSA's (Caracas, Venezuela) Cardon refinery has moved its planned April 2009 maintenance turnarounds to the third quarter of 2009 as a result of delays in the expansion work of the facility's fluid catalytic cracking and akylation units.

The ongoing maintenance work in Alkylation 1, which began in mid-February 2008, aims to increase the unit's capacity from 1,500 tons per day to 2,400 tons per day. The unit is set to remain offline during the expansion turnaround in the 77,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU). The FCCU expansion began in August 2008. Although the project had been set to be finished by mid-January 2009, authorities have said the completion date is now expected by mid-March because of the lack of workers and an unexpected shutdown in mid-December 2008 after a power outage. The project, which will expand the FCCU's 11,000-ton-per-day capacity to 12,800 tons per day, was postponed from August 15 to September 1 because of a tower-installation issue. The flare, propane-propylene, diethanol amine and salt water lines 4 and 5 are also shut down and will remain offline until the FCCU and Alkylation 1 are online again.

The 70,000-BBL/d delayed coker, 75,000-BBL/d Crude 4, SRU 2 and 3, 58,000-BBL/d HDT 2 (Naphtha), 51,000-BBL/d Platformer (CCR), hydrogen, 36,000-BBL/d HDS and sour water treatment units, which were set to go offline for 45-day general maintenance in January 2009, are now set to undergo maintenance beginning in August 2009.

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