Pemex Continues to Restart Units from Reconfiguration Project

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Latin America (Cordoba, Argentina)--Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) (Mexico City, Mexico), owner and operator of the 184,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) General Lazaro Cardenas Refinery in Minatitlan, Veracruz, is restarting the last units from after completing a reconfiguration project at the refinery.

The new 150,000-BBL/d Combinada Maya 4 (Crude) unit has been processing at commercial rates since mid-September; however, the unit is running at 60-67% capacity, which means between 90,000 BBL/d and 100,000 BBL/d. The company expects to have the Crude 4 unit processing at full capacity when the new 55,000-BBL/d delayed coker from the reconfiguration project is up and running, as well as the new 42,000-BBL/d fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) and alkylation units, which are also in the startup process. The whole project is expected to be finished and processing at normal rates by the end of the year. For related information, see September 12, 2011, article - Pemex Completes Minatitlan Reconfiguration Project.

The maintenance team has been performing planned repair work on the 60,000-BBL/d Primaria 5 (Crude) since mid-September. The 29,000-BBL/d Vacuum Distillation 2; 28,000-BBL/d FCCU 1; 15,000-BBL/d kerosene hydrotreater; and SRU units were shut down for planned repairs on October 22. All of these processing units are on schedule to come online by the end of the week. Expectations are that once Primaria 5 is processing normally, the company will begin procedures to mothball the Primaria 1 and Primaria 2 crude units, which are each able to process 25,000 BBL/d.

Once the units are restarted, the refinery will be able to process 285,000 BBL/d.

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