Willemstad Isla Refinery Maintenance Scheduled

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A planned maintenance and cleaning shutdown in Willemstad Isla HDX Complex is scheduled to begin on February 8, 2008, and last 30 mechanical days. The units are expected to be running at normal rates by March 20, 2008.

All of the processing units at the Isla refinery, operated by Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA in Curacao, were completely shut down on December 3, 2007, after a power failure. A problem emerged when trying to restart the cat cracker. For more details, see related December 11, 2007, article - Several Units Remain Offline after Power Outage at PDVSA Refinery in Curacao or see related December 26, 2007, article - PDVSA Restarts Cat Cracker at Willemstad Isla Refinery in Curacao after Early December Outage.

The cat cracker at the Willemstad Isla refinery, which had to be shut down along with the rest of the processing units in early December after a power failure, was brought back online on December 27, 2007, and is currently running at maximum capacity. For more details, see related January 8 2008, article - Willemstad Isla Refinery's Cat Cracker Running at Maximum Rates after December Outage.

The planned turnaround scheduled to begin in February involves eight units from the HDX Complex: platforming, naphtha hydrotreatment, polymerization plant, alkylation, PSA/hydrogen purification, hydrogen, lubes hydrotreatment and tail gas. Since early December 2007, a planned turnaround in SRU 2 is being performed and is planned to be finished by the end of January. SRU 3 is on standby because stock feed programming, and a problem in its rotor is being solved. SRU 4 and 5 are online and running at normal rates. Maintenance shutdowns in these units are to be performed independently over eight mechanical days after the ongoing turnaround in SRU 2 is complete and is back online.

Thermal cracker 2 and feed crackers 1 and 2 are online and running without inconveniences. The offline thermal cracker 1 is offline and not running as a crude distillation unit. When problems arise in crude units, thermal crackers are often transformed into crude distillation units. Thermal cracker 1 is scheduled to be restarted in this mode in October 2008 when the planned turnaround on thermal cracker 2 is performed. HV6 is on standby since its last turnaround in July 2007. HV7 is online and running at normal rates. Generally, one of these HV units is offline on standby mode. The offline unit then goes online when a planned or unplanned shutdown in the online unit is performed. The plant is currently running at normal rates since all of its crude units, CD2A, CD2B and CD3, are running at normal capacity.

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