Petrotrin to Increase FCCU Capacity at Pointe a Pierre Refinery in Trinidad and Tobago

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (Petrotrin) (Pointe a Pierre, Trinidad and Tobago), the state-owned oil and gas company, is undergoing a revamp project on the fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) at the 190,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Pointe a Pierre refinery.

The FCCU, which has a capacity of 26,000 BBL/d, has been shut down since mid-May 2011 for maintenance repairs, but mainly to perform a capital expansion project that aims to improve gasoline quality and quantity, and increase the unit´s capacity to 35,000 BBL/d. The turnaround experienced some setbacks due to a delay in the equipment delivery, along with other company decisions that affected the project completion date. The revamp work originally was scheduled to be completed by the end of August, and then further postponed to the end of September, but now the company expects to have it finished by the end of October.

The unit startup is scheduled to occur by early December. When the revamp is finished, a new alkylation and acid plant will begin operations as well. Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (NYSE:CBI) (CB&I) (The Hague, Netherlands) was selected as EPC contractor to perform the FCCU unit Revamp project.

The delay in the completion of the unit´s expansion affected the company´s schedule on its 150,000-BBL/d Topping 8 (crude) unit maintenance turnaround. The processing facility, which was set to shut down for planned repairs in November 2011, is now scheduled to occur during the first quarter of 2012 for approximately 42 days. The 40,000-BBL/d Crude Topping Unit 1 is still scheduled to be shut down in February 2012, although there is a chance that the turnaround might be further postponed. The Topping 1 recently has experienced unplanned issues with a heater and was forced to go offline by mid-September, returning to normal operations on September 23.

The revamp on the FCCU project is part of Petrotrin's gasoline optimization upgrade.

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