IIR Top Refining News Today

North America
Ergon on May 29, experienced a fire on the hydrogen production unit at its 23,000-BBL/d Congo Refinery in Newell, West Virginia, which caused the refinery to shut down and damaged the 3,600-BBL/d Platformer unit.

CITGO Petroleum is in the process of restarting the 30,000-BBL/d Reformer Feed HT unit on the West side of its 165,000-BBL/d Corpus Christi, Texas, refining complex, with plans to restart the unit and the 30,000-BBL/d Platformer 5 by the end of the week. The units were shut down on May 14.

Shell on August 18, will conduct a 50-day plant-wide turnaround at its 96,500-BBL/d Scotford Refinery in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. The turnaround, which includes four units, was originally scoped for September 9.

International
PDVSA, in late May, was forced to shut down all processing units at its 625,000-BBL/d Amuay, Venezuela, refinery, due to utility issues. In approximately one week, the company plans to restart the 85,000-BBL/d Crude 1 and 120,000-BBL/d Crude 2, and associated units, while the 180,000-BBL/d Crude 5 and 80,000-BBL/d FCC will continue offline until the third week of June; their restart is dependent upon the completion of boiler repairs that are still being performed. Separately, the 120,000-BBL/d Crude 3 and 120,000-BBL/d Crude Distillation 4 will continue offline until late 2021.

PDVSA on June 1, was forced to shut down the 77,000-BBL/d FCC unit at its 295,000-BBL/d Cardon, Venezuela, refinery, after it was kept online for 72 hours. The unit had been forced offline on May 22 and was restarted on May 28; however, further mechanical issues forced this shutdown. Although a clear restart date has not been disclosed, Industrial Info estimates the unit will be back online in seven to eight days. Meanwhile, four units, and associated units, are processing at minimum rates due to recurrent mechanical and utility issues. The 70,000-BBL/d Crude 3 and 75,000-BBL/d Crude 4 remain offline.

Esso Petroleum Company Ltd began a nine-week planned maintenance turnaround of the 36,500-BBL/d Residfiner on June 1 at its 270,000-BBL/d Fawley Refinery in the U.K. The restart is expected in early August. More processing units are expected to shut down over the coming days.

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