German Refinery Already Preparing for April 2010 Maintenance Shutdown

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Cordoba, Argentina)--PCK Raffinerie GmbH is already preparing to perform a maintenance shutdown scheduled for April 2010 at the 220,500-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Schwedt PCK refinery, located in the eastern German city of Schwedt near the Polish border. PCK Raffinerie is a joint venture of Shell & DEA Oil GmbH (37.5%), Ruhr Oil Gmbh (37.5%) and AET-Raffinerie Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH (25%).

The refinery is planning to put 30% of its operational units offline for mandatory maintenance work: the 74,000-BBL/d Crude 1, Vacuum 1, Thermal Catalytic Cracker 1, High Conversion Soaker Cracking 1 and fluid catalytic cat cracker, among other units.

The refinery does not perform complete overhauls at one time. Every three years, only one of the two crude distillation units, along with the associated units, are taken offline at a time. This allows the facility to keep processing throughout the mandatory maintenance turnarounds determined by government regulations. Accordingly, the 143,000-BBL/d Crude 2 unit will undergo a maintenance shutdown in April 2013, shutting down 70% of production. It is expected that the nonproduction days will last 30 to 35 days.

The facility processes crude oil to make products such as liquefied petroleum gas, propane, propylene, butane, sulfur-free gasoline, sulfur-free diesel fuel, jet fuel, light heating oil and heavy fuel oil. It generates products for the petrochemical industry, such as fiber feedstock for polyester.

The refinery began operation in 1964 and has had several expansions and optimizations since then, including technology updates at the refining structure and measures for environmental protection. This has required investments of more than $1.9 billion.

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