PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery Restarts Alkylation Unit

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The alkylation unit at the 325,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Willemstad Isla Refinery, owned by Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA, in Curacao, was restarted on July 5 after remaining offline from acid drum issues that stemmed from a power outage on April 14.

The outage occurred as several units from the hydrotreatment operation area were reaching normal production rates after a 50-day planned maintenance shutdown. The turnaround involved eight units: naphtha hydrotreater, mild hydrocracker, lubes hydrotreatment, polymerization plant, platforming and diesel hydrotreatment. The reformer unit had to be shut down a week before the turnaround began because of a boiler problem. For more details, view related April 10, 2008, news article - Power Outage Forces All Units Offline at PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery. By the time the second power outage occurred on April 14, the feed cracker 2, thermal cracker 2, CD3, CD2 B and HV7 units had already been restarted at minimum rates. For details, view related April 14, 2008, news article - PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery Experiencing Another Power Outage.

The alkylation unit was unable to stay online after its restart on May 23 because of a problem in its acid drum. PDVSA restarted the 6,000-BBL/d unit after restarting the 55,000-BBL/d FCCU. The units were offline for six weeks after a refinery-wide power outage. For more details, view related June 9, 2008, news article - Alkylation Unit at PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery Unable to Remain Online.

The FCCU remained derated, processing 6,200 tons per day because of the decrease in butane production generally used to feed the alkylation unit. The FCCU has returned to normal rates right after the alkylation unit was restarted and is processing 7,200 tons per day. Planned maintenance work in the main column of the vacuum HV7 unit began July 7 as scheduled. Vacuum HV6 is online and processing without problems. SRU 3 and 4 are online, SRU 5 remains under maintenance work.

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View Turnaround Report - 68584 70414

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