Ecopetrol Restarts FCCU After Extended Shutdown at Colombian Refinery

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Ecopetrol (Bogota, Colombia) has restarted one of its four fluid catalytic cracking units (FCCU) at the 247,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Barrancabermeja refinery in Colombia after a long maintenance shutdown.

The 19,000-BBL/d FCCU 1, which utilizes UOP technology, began a maintenance turnaround on April 13. The shutdown was expected to end by May 12 but experienced a delay as a result of a major problem in the reactor. The turnaround was then extended more than 20 days, and the start-up process began on June 3. The Sulfur Recovery Unit 2 and the Polyethylene Unit 1 were also shutdown because of feedstock issues. These units also restarted operations on the same day.

The refinery has planned a series of maintenance turnarounds for 2009 and 2010:

June 2009: Crude U-2100 (36,000 BBL/d) and Vacuum 5

November 2009: Crude U-250 (45,000 BBL/d) and Vacuum 2 units

First half of 2010: FCCU UOP 2 (35,000 BBL/d) and SRU 3

Second semester: FCCU 4 (17,000 BBL/d).

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View Turnaround Report - 86838 81359 86839

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