PDVSA Delays FCCU Expansion Project at Cardon Refinery

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Authorities from Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.'s Cardon Refinery have moved the start date for maintenance and expansion work in the 77,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) from July 15 to August 15. The start date for the expansion to expand the FCCU's 11,000-ton-per-day capacity to 12,800 tons per day had been postponed once before because of a tower-installation issue. Plant authorities had to reschedule the project because of another delay in the completion of equipment installation. Bad weather conditions, especially high winds, have also prevented the maintenance team from completing the installation.

During the four-month expansion turnaround, the liquefied petroleum gas, flare, propane-propylene, diethanol amine and salt water lines 4 and 5 will be shut down for 30 mechanical days; however, these units will remain offline until the FCCU and Alkylation 1 are online. Maintenance work in the alkylation unit, which began in mid-February to increase the unit's capacity from 1,500 tons per day to 2,400 tons per day, is expected to be ready by mid-August.

A maintenance team is preparing the equipment to begin the planned turnaround in the Crude 2 unit on July 4. This shutdown was previously set to begin on August 1; however, it was moved forward because the quality of products had begun to decrease and all of the elements necessary to perform the maintenance work were already procured. For more details, view related June 25, 2008, news article - Cardon Refinery Moves Maintenance Turnaround Forward.

The furfural unit remains offline because of tower obstruction generated by a power problem that occurred on June 20. For more details, view related June 26, 2008, article - PDVSA's Cardon Refinery Quickly Recovers from Power Problem. The maintenance team has already solved the problem, and the unit was handed over to operations; even so, it remains offline due to testing delays. As of July 2, the refinery is processing 287,000 BBL/d, and the furfural and Alkylation 1 units are the only units currently offline.

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