Tamoil and Petroplus Return to Normal Rates in Switzerland

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Tamoil S.A.'s (Geneva, Switzerland) 51,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Collombey refinery and Petroplus Holdings AG's (VTX:PPHN) (Zug, Switzerland) 68,000-BBL/d Cressier refinery are operating at normal rates after a series of planned maintenance turnarounds that kept both Swiss refineries out of production for several weeks from the beginning of April 2010.

Switzerland has two refineries: the Collombey refinery, created in 1960 in the canton of Valais, and the Cressier refinery, created in 1966 in the canton of Neuchâtel. Both refineries were built by Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands). In 1990, Tamoil acquired the Collombey refinery, and the Cressier refinery was purchased by Petroplus 10 years later.

On April 26, the Collombey refinery resumed activities after a minor 20-day turnaround that entailed maintenance work on six units, including the 51,000-BBL/d topping unit, the 6,500-BBL/d isomerization unit, the 19,000-BBL/d naphtha hydrotreater (unifining), the 12,000-BBL/d reformer unit, the 8,000-BBL/d gas oil hydrodesulfurization unit, and a solvent dewaxing unit. The 20,000-BBL/d residue catalytic cracker, as well as the water treatment unit, a sulphur recovery unit, and a naphtha polymerization unit remained online during the turnaround. However, these units will be brought offline in September 2011 for 60 non-production days, as part of Tamoil's scheduled major maintenance and inspection turnaround.

On May 22, the Cressier refinery restarted production after a major maintenance and inspection turnaround that kept the production area of the refinery offline since April 9 2010. The turnaround involved the 68,000-BBL/d crude distillation unit, the 16,000-BBL/d reformer unit, the 9,000-BBL/d visbreaker, three hydrotreaters, a vacuum distillation unit and an isomerization unit.

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