Planned Maintenance at North American Petroleum Refineries Decreases by 6% in the Spring of 2006

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). The number of units scheduled for planned maintenance activity during this year, January through April, at refineries located in North America is down 6% as compared to the same period in 2005. This decrease is in part due to the fact that many refineries were shutdown in preparation for, or were damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August and September 2005. In preparing these refineries to restart, many companies took advantage of the down time to perform maintenance work that would have normally been done during previously scheduled Spring 2006 turnarounds.

The effects of Katrina and Rita still linger today. There are two refineries that have yet to become fully operational because of the damage left behind and the repair work needed for these plants to restart safely. ConocoPhillip’s Alliance, Louisiana refinery will fully restart in the coming weeks, Murphy’s Meraux Louisiana refinery will begin to restart around the middle of April. BP’s Texas City refinery has been down due to repairs required relating to the March 2005 explosions. The company intends to restart half of its plant in the next week.

See graph right to view spring 2006 vs spring 2005 by major unit type groupings

During the first four months of this year, there are 355 planned unit turnarounds in comparison to 377 during the same period last year. The majority of the maintenance activity scheduled for this year will involve 48 atmospheric crude units, 58 reformers, 26 fluid cat crackers and thirteen cokers all across North America. As expected, the state of Texas will see the majority of activity, with 67 unit turnarounds or nearly 19% of the turnaround total. The Southwest region, which is home to the greatest concentration of refineries, will see 28% or 100 individual unit turnarounds.

Companies that provide emergency services during unplanned upsets have seen a reduction in opportunities in 2006. In addition to the planned shutdowns, there were 105 unplanned shutdowns during the first four months of this year compared to 178 during the same period in 2005.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a Marketing Information Service company that has been doing business for over 23 years. IIR is respected as the leader in providing comprehensive market intelligence pertaining to the industrial processing, heavy manufacturing, and energy-related industries throughout the world.