Power Outage Shuts Down PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA shut down all of its processing units at the 325,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Willemstad Isla refinery in Curacao because of an unexpected power outage on April 27.

Power and air were restored to the plant within 24 hours, and steam production resumed on April 29. The 160,000-BBL/d Crude 3 and 48,000-BBL/d Feed Cracker 2 are expected to be restarted during the day, followed by all of the other units over the weekend and early next week.

On April 24, the 52,000-BBL/d fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) was shut down because of steam-related issues. Plant authorities said they considered accelerating the September 2009 turnaround and maintenance repairs on the FCCU and 48,000-BBL/d Feed Cracker 1; however, they decided to perform only necessary immediate repairs on both units to have them online by May 6. The 40-day maintenance turnaround is being rescheduled and could be postponed until the first quarter of 2010.

The refinery experienced four power outages in 2008. The first one occurred on April 9 as several units from the hydrotreatment operation area were reaching normal production rates after a 50-day planned maintenance shutdown. For more details, view related April 10, 2008, news article - Power Outage Forces All Units Offline at PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery. The second outage occurred on April 14. For details, view related April 14, 2008, news article - PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery Experiencing Another Power Outage. The third and fourth electric issues, which occurred in December 2008, delayed the completion of ongoing turnarounds. For more details, view related January 12, 2009, news article - Power Outage Delays Maintenance Turnarounds at PDVSA's Willemstad Isla Refinery.

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