ENAP Restarts Bio Bio Refinery After Earthquake

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Chile's state-owned oil company Empresa Nacional del Petroleo (Enap) (Las Condes, Chile) is in the process of restarting the 115,700-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Bio Bio Refinery after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck the region on February 27.

The Bio Bio Refinery, which has been offline since the earthquake, is gradually resuming operations. The restarting process is scheduled to be completed in three phases. At this time, the first phase has already been completed. The 50,300-BBL/d Topping 1 unit, the 21,000-BBL/d Vacuum 1 unit, the 7,800-BBL/d visbreaker, the 12,000-BBL/d HDS 1 unit and others began the oil-in process by mid-May.

The 20,100-BBL/d FCCU, the 7,500-BBL/d parison (isometric paraffin) unit, the 15,700-BBL/d HDG, the 13,800-BBL/d reformer (CCR) and others, began to resuming operations May 21 as part of the second phase.

Finally, expectations are to start the third and last phase, consisting of the 65,400-BBL/d Topping 2 unit, the 13,000-BBL/d delayed coker, the 34,000-BBL/d Vacuum 2 unit, the 12,000-BBL/d HDS 2 unit and others the first week of June. According to the schedule, the entire plant is expected to resume normal operations by the third week of June.

Enap's 100,000-BBL/d Aconcagua refinery, also affected by the earthquake, resumed normal operations by the third week of April, when the 20,000-BBL/d delayed coker was brought online.

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