Ecuador's Esmeraldas Refinery Units Back Online after Technical Issue

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Petroecuador's 110,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Esmeraldas refinery successfully restarted its 55,000-BBL/d Crude 2 and 15,900-BBL/d Vacuum 2 units on December 31, 2008, after they were forced to shut down on December 27 because of technical problems in the CE-28 air cooler.

The 18,000-BBL/d fluid catalytic cracker was not affected, since it is mostly fed by the 55,000-BBL/d Vacuum 1 unit, which is processing at normal rates. The refinery was processing 50,000 BBL/d. For more details, view related January 5 2008, article - Esmeraldas Refinery Shuts Down Two Units After Exchanger Issue.

The damaged air cooler was isolated, and it is currently being repaired with existing spare parts. Crude Distiller 2 was restarted with a second air cooler. As of January 7, Crude 2 and Vacuum 2 are derated, processing 44,000 BBL/d and 12,700 BBL/d, respectively. Both units will remain as such until the damaged air cooler is repaired. The remaining units at Esmeraldas, except for the isomerization unit, are being kept online, and the refinery is currently processing 94,000 BBL/d.

During a planned maintenance turnaround scheduled for May 2009, new uninterruptible-power-supply backup equipment will be installed. The Vacuum 2 tower back-filling will be changed and a decoking in the Crude 2 unit will be performed.

View Plant Profile - 1021399
View Project Report - 71100067
View Turnaround Report - 78605 78608 66775 56656

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.