Overhaul Under Way at Sonara Refinery in Cameroon

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--La Société Nationale du Raffinage (SONARA) (Limb, Cameroon) is performing a maintenance overhaul at the company's 45,000-barrel-per-day Sonara refinery in the city of Limbe, Cameroon.

The turnaround, which entails mainly maintenance and inspection, involves the main production areas of the refinery: the Distilation plant, the Reforming plant and the Utilities area, with 10 units in all. Units were brought offline October 19 for a non-production period of approximately 48 days, and they are expected to resume activities December 6.

Under normal conditions, turnarounds are performed every five years; however, the last planned overhaul took place in 2002. The following shutdown was originally scheduled for the second half of 2007, but it was postponed for October 2009 to prepare equipment for modernization and expansion programs that will allow the Sonara complex to distillate heavy crude from Cameroon, instead of only processing the incoming light crude from Nigeria.

The Sonara Refinery is in the city of Limbe, in southwest Cameroon. Created in 1976, this refinery specializes in the production of gas oil, fuel oil, napthta and butane for domestic and export use.

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