Ineos' Lavéra Refinery in France Undergoing Crude Distillation Unit Turnaround

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The 218,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Ineos Group Limited's (Lyndhurst, England) Lavéra Refinery, in Lavéra, France, began a maintenance turnaround of the facility's crude distillation unit on April 20.

The shutdown concerns the only crude distillation unit at the refinery, known as Crude Distillation 5. The revamp includes replacing all tubes in the unit's furnace, as well as repairs to the main column to improve the unit's working conditions. The unit came down on April 20 and is expected to remain offline for a non-production period of 70 days.

Separately, the 14,200-BBL/d hydrocracker and the steam methane reformer, known as the Hydrogen Production Unit, were shut down on February 22 as part of a minor turnaround that included catalyst change for the hydrocracker and complete retubing of one of the unit's four heaters. Units resumed activities on March 22.

The next planned major turnaround for these units will take place in March 2012 and will involve five units related to the hydrocracker: a steam methane reformer, two sulfur recovery units, an amine treatment unit, and a wastewater stripper.

Finally, a revamp on the 35,650-BBL/d fluid catalytic unit is expected to take place in October-November this year. Key work includes the replacement of stainless steel cyclones and heater tubes in order to improve the unit's efficiency.

Built by BP plc (NYSE:BP) (London, England) (then British Petroleum) in 1933, the refinery has been part of Ineos Group since 2005 and produces a wide range of products, from gas to bitumen, as well as naphtha for the adjacent petrochemical site.

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