PDVSA Gradually Restarts Amuay Refinery in Venezuela After Explosion

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Latin America (Cordoba, Argentina)--Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) (Caracas), the owner and operator of the 640,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Amuay Refinery in Falcon state, in northwest Venezuela, is in the process of restarting the facility after a major explosion that occurred on August 25, 2012.

The Amuay Refinery, which has been offline due to the unexpected fire that broke out at the tank area, is gradually resuming operations. The fire affected nine tanks that were burning several days after the explosion, and it was finally put out on August 28 after firefighters' hard work. As a result of the huge refinery blast, 48 people were killed and dozens were injured. Surrounding houses and stores were severely damaged.

Once the fire was extinguished, the company began the restart procedures for the processing units. By the weekend of September 2, the 120,000-BBL/d Crude 2 and 120,000-BBL/d Crude 3 were online, processing at reduced rates. The 120,000-BBL/d Crude 4 was restarted on September 4, while the 85,000-BBL/d Crude 1 was online September 5. The heater of the 195,000-BBL/d Crude 5 was damaged by the explosion, and a unit was kept offline until unplanned repairs were completed. According to refinery sources, maintenance authorities have not yet been able to set a duration for the Crude 5 downtime, but estimations are that it might remain offline for at least two months before it could restart.

The 64,000-BBL/d Flexicoker and 130,000-BBL/d Flexicracker units were restarted over the last weekend, and units are continuing to ramp up production. Along next week, the hydroteater, sulphur recovery and hydrogen units are scheduled to be brought online once repairs on the hydrogen units are completed, since they are having tubing issues after the explosion. By the time the incident occurred, the 40,000-BBL/d delayed coker (Crai) was running at 50% capacity due to major turnaround work; the unit will remain as such until the end of September, when the unit's Train B repairs are expected to be completed.

All the processing units, except for the Crude 5, are expected to be operational within 10 days. During ordinary operating conditions, Amuay is able to process between 75% and 80% of its designed capacity; once the entire refinery returns to operations, the facility will continue processing at reduced rates until further notice. However, current estimations indicate that the refinery would be able to process less than 50% capacity.

PDVSA owns and operates the Paraguana Refinery Complex, which includes Amuay and the 295,000-BBL/d Cardon refineries. Paraguana is considered the second-largest refinery complex in the world.

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