PDVSA's Amuay Refinery Restarts After Gasification Issue

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The 150,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) flexicoker at Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.'s (PDVSA) (Caracas) Amuay refinery at the Paraguana Refining Center in Venezuela is already online after being shut down on January 15 because of a problem in the gasification section.

The flexicoker is operating at 35,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) and is expected to ramp up to 75,000 BBL/d during the weekend. It will continue to operate at that capacity until March, which is when it will be shut down for a four-month overhaul, which was previously scheduled for June but moved because of the incident. While the flexicoker remains offline for the turnaround, the 100,000-BBL/d Crude 5 unit will be kept derated, processing at 70,000 BBL/d.

On January 13, a small fire at a pump associated with the 22,000-BBL/d Naphtha Fractionator 1 occurred. The unit was restarted on January 14 and has already resumed normal operation. The affected pump will be changed in approximately one week while the unit continues to run. The entire refinery is currently processing 400,000 BBL/d and will reach its normal capacity of 500,000 BBL/d over the weekend.

On December 24, 2008, PDVSA was forced to shut down the 25,000-BBL/d naphtha hydrotreater unit at Amuay because of an unexpected fire. Authorities have said that the affected furnace was isolated, and the unit was restarted before the end of the year. For more details, view related January 8, 2009, article - Amuay Refinery's Naphtha Hydrotreater Back Online After Fire.

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