Utilities Issues Delay PDVSA's Curaçao Refinery Restart After Power Outage

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Venezuela's state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) remains unable to restart important processing units at the 325,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Willemstad, Isla Curacao, refinery after a plant-wide outage.

On March 1, an unexpected power blackout forced the shutdown of all processing units at the refinery. The 40-day planned repairs at the 160,000-BBL/d Crude 3 and 48,000-BBL/d Feed Crack 1 units, previously scheduled to be performed in October this year, began on March 24. Mechanical work has already been finished; however, the units remain offline and will be restarted by mid-July. Turnaround work is currently under way at the 20,000-BBL/d Platformer and 26,000-BBL/d Naphtha Hydrotreater. Furnace revision and clean-out in the 29,000-BBL/d Mild Hydrocracker unit began on June 27; the unit is expected to be online by the end of the month.

Furfural Extraction 1, MDU, lube units and the 20,000-BBL/d HV8 unit were restarted two weeks ago; CD2 B and HV6 were restarted on June 26. The remaining processing units will come online in sequence in the first two weeks of July. The 52,000-BBL/d Fluid Catalytic Cracking unit (FCCU) and the 6,000-BBL/d Alkylation unit will start processing in late July 2010. Turnaround work in the HV8 is set to occur in October in order to perform repairs, especially in the steam tank accumulator and steam generator. During the same month, Catalyst change-out and furnace revision will be performed in the 37,000-BBL/d Diesel Hydrotreater. The refinery is expected to be processing at normal rates by early August.

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