Petrobras' San Lorenzo Refinery Operating at Reduced Rates

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The 52,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) San Lorenzo Refinery operated by Petrobras Energia (NYSE:PZE) (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Petrobras' (NYSE:PBR) (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) subsidiary in Argentina, is processing at 50% of the plant's capacity. The refinery has faced difficulties this year and was forced to shut down the 12,500-BBL/d Topping 3 unit on June 26. This same unit also was brought offline on March 2 due to lack of crude oil supply at the plant, which had been caused by a budget constraint. For more details, view related March 17, 2009, news article - Petrobras Energia's San Lorenzo Refinery Reduces Processing Capacity.

The refinery had to shut down the Topping 3 unit on June 26 due to lack of gasoil demand and economic issues. The unit's startup date has not been set, and it will remain offline until further notice. Starting July 9, the refinery also had to shut down the 3,000-BBL/d Thermal Cracking and the 12,000-BBL/d Vacuum 1 units for 11 days because the ship that supplies crude oil was delayed. These units restarted on July 19.

Separately, San Lorenzo Refinery is planning to perform a maintenance turnaround in the Thermal Cracking and Vacuum 1 units to change the vacuum condenser, replace the trays in the furnace, and decoke the Thermal cracking units. The shutdown, previously set to be performed in August 2010, will take place in January and will last 20 days.

Petrobras is analyzing the possibility of selling San Lorenzo Refinery, one of the two refineries the company owns in Argentina.

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