All Processing Units Online at Ecuador Refinery

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--On January 3, 2008, Esmeraldas' continuous catalytic reformer (CCR) stopped working because of a problem in the P3-H01 furnace that regenerates the catalyst. Because the CCR was not processing, there was no hydrogen to keep the hydrodesulfurization (HDS), hydro-diesel treatment (HDT) and isomerization units online. The four units remained offline until January 9 2008.

Ecuador is the fifth-largest oil producer in South America with a 532,000-barrel-per-day (BPD) production capacity of oil. Petroecuador owns three refineries: the 43,000-BPD La Libertad; 110,000-BPD Shushufindi and 110,000-BPD Esmeraldas refinery.

Petroecuador's Esmeraldas refinery, which processes Oriente Crude (23 degrees API), is processing 100,000 BPD of its 110,000 processing capacity. For more details, see related December 7, 2007, article - Ecuador Refinery's Processing Capacity Below Normal.

After the January 3 incident, which damaged the CCR's electric resistances, the unit was brought online on January 9 and is now processing at 75% of its total capacity. It is unable to reach full capacity even though furnace repairs were completed in the last week of November 2007 because the unit has not been handed over yet.

HDS and HDT, which were offline because of a lack of hydrogen, were restarted after the CCR came online. Isomerization is being restarted without inconveniences. Crude 2 is processing at normal rates; however, Crude 1 is still processing at 95% of total capacity because during the last turnaround in October 2007, the mechanical decoking process could not be performed as planned. Another maintenance shutdown in this unit will have to be performed to carry out traditional decoking; a date has not been set. The refinery is processing 102,000 BPD, and all of its processing units are currently online.

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