Czech Republic's Unipetrol Refinery Forced to Advance Shutdown

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Europe (Galway, Ireland)--Unipetrol AS (Prague, Czech Republic), owner of the 20,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Pardubice Refinery, which is operated by Unipetrol subsidiary Paramo, is considering selling the refinery or operating only bitumen-processing units.

The refinery, which is the smallest of the three refineries in the Czech Republic, remains on schedule to perform a 20-day minor maintenance turnaround in March 2012. The planned turnaround, which will entail cleaning and inspection, will affect the entire refinery, including the refining, bitumen and oil areas; the 20,000-BBL/d crude distillation unit; the 7,000-BBL/d vacuum distillation unit; the 6,100 gas oil HDS; a bitumen production unit; an oil blending unit; and others.

As a consequence of poor market conditions, Unipetrol has decided to bring the units offline by December 20, 2011, remaining out of production until the planned maintenance work is completed. It has not been decided yet whether the company will resume all units or just those related to the production of oil and bitumen.

The Pardubice Refinery was in a similar situation last year, when the company started its temporary production shutdown one month earlier than previously planned on January 20, 2011. The 20,000-BBL/d crude unit and the 6,100-BBL/d gas oil HDS unit were shut down due to poor market conditions; however, at that time, the rest of the production units remained operating until the scheduled turnaround date. In normal conditions, a maintenance turnaround is performed once a year for approximately 20 days.

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