London — Most maintenance works in Northwest Europe has been completed, with worksalso fairly minor in the Mediterranean, according to S&P Global Plattsestimates.
NEW AND REVISED ENTRIES
-- Italy's Milazzo, whose 46,200 b/d FCC unit has been offline for aroundthree weeks for maintenance and upgrade works, was running as usual, a companysource told S&P Global Platts. The refinery began the restart process in lateJune at the FCC plant after it originally went offline at the end of May whenit encountered catalyst issues, forcing the start of upgrade works. At thetime, union sources said the FCC unit would be operational again around June18. The FCC unit's maintenance was originally postponed last October to early2018 but was again postponed.
-- Works at the UK's Grangemouth, which started in April, have been completed,with the refinery back to full capacity this month, according to tradingsources. The refinery was due to carry out partial maintenance, involving oneof the three CDU units.
EXISTING ENTRIES
-- The 37,810 b/d visbreaker at Lysekil is offline following a fire in one ofthe unit's furnaces on June 13, the company said. The fire has been "handledimmediately and without any personnel injuries," the company said. Thevisbreaker is expected to be operational "within days" but operating with onlyone furnace instead of two. "It is too early to estimate when the unit will beback in full operation," the company said.
-- Bilbao said in a note on the Petronor web site it would take its H3hydrogen unit offline as a consequence of maintenance on its G3 desulfurization unit, which is also offline. The restart of the hydrogen unitis expected in early August, it said. The refinery has four desulfurizationunits (4.435 million mt/year total capacity) which are used to extract sulfurfrom middle distillates. The company also said it halted a number ofunspecified units in its No.1 refinery to carry out maintenance between June18 and early July.
-- Italian refiner Saras has announced plans to carry out maintenance andupgrade works in the first half on CDU units T1, T2 and RT2, vacuumdistillation V2, visbreaker and mild hydrocracking unit 2. In the firstquarter, there was maintenance on the North Plant. This has been completed,with all plants online and operational, a source close to the refinery said.In the third quarter, no major maintenance has been planned at the refinery,while the continuous catalytic cracker (CCR) will undergo maintenance in thefourth quarter.
-- Italy's Taranto has been offline for work on its distillation, catalyticand conversion units and their ancillary units since early June. Work was setto continue over the next two months. The works will be carried out in twophases. The first phase involves the distillation unit and the diesel andgasoline catalytic plants and their ancillary units, and will be completed inthe first 10 days of July. From around July 20, upgrade and maintenance workswill start on the refinery's conversion units and ancillary plants. Therefinery was expected to be back online in early August.
-- The 50,000 b/d fluid catalytic cracker unit at Italy's Augusta remainsoffline as of early June following a fire in early March, a union source said.
-- Maintenance at Israeli refiner Bazan, formerly ORL, was expected in June,traders said.
-- Spain's Tarragona refinery has started an earlier planned maintenance,which will affect the production at several units including the hydrocracker.Works are due to last from May 28 until late June.
-- Gunvor Petroleum Rotterdam, previously the Q8 Refinery Europoort, isexpected to undergo maintenance in June, but the exact units are unknown,traders said.
-- Romania's Rompetrol said its Petromidia facility was expected to process5.44 million mt in 2018, down from 5.66 million mt in 2016, as it planscertain works including decoking, regeneration and replacement of catalysts.
-- INA is planning maintenance at the Rijeka refinery in the fourth quarter.
-- MOL has continued some Q1 maintenance activities at its flagship Danube andBratislava refineries into the second quarter. The company did not specifywhich units have been affected, nor provide a completion date.
-- Finland's Neste is to implement "several scheduled unit turnarounds" on itsoil products refining capacity during this spring and autumn. One of the unitsincluded in the spring maintenance is the Porvoo refinery's 44,600 b/d FCC, atrader said.
-- Poland's Plock refinery is planning to carry out works in the springinvolving a CDU, FCC (28,000 b/d), reformer (44,300 b/d) and one HDS(hydrodesulfurization) unit.
-- Major maintenance has been ongoing at the Orlen Lietuva refinery inLithuania. The refinery is "currently focusing on major maintenance works", itsaid in the last week of April.
FUTURE
NEW AND REVISED ENTRIES
-- Spain's Cepsa has moved a step closer towards permanent closure of itsrefinery on Tenerife after signing an agreement with the regional authoritiesof Santa Cruz, Tenerife to transform the site into a mixture of public spaceand realty. The complex, which has been in operation for nearly 90 yearsrefined its last barrel in 2014, having been previously idled in 2013 due to"economic reasons." The company did not provide a time frame for thedismantling or other details regarding the transfer of its other operations atthe site.
EXISTING ENTRIES
-- Italian refinery Saras has scheduled maintenance on various units whichwill be offline intermittently in the first half of 2019. Separately Sarasplans large-scale maintenance in 2020, carried out in a six-year turnaroundcycle. It will also carry out maintenance and upgrade works on the 90,000 b/dFCC plant in 2020 and expand on current plans to boost its sea jetty through2021 to make the refinery more flexible and open it up to receiving differenttypes of crudes from around the world, a labor union source said.
-- Lukoil's ISAB refining complex in Sicily will be offline for some 50 daysin October and November 2018 for maintenance and upgrades.
-- Germany's Holborn refinery, near Hamburg, is planning its next majorturnaround in the autumn. It carries out major work every five years.
-- Norway's Kalundborg plans partial maintenance in September. Separately, therefinery was not offering low sulfur fuel oil due to a unit being offline,trading sources said.
-- Partial maintenance will be carried out at Sweden's Gothenburg in theautumn when it will shut down its GHT/ISOGHT to change the GHT catalyst.
-- Galp Energia has planned a scheduled stoppage of the 40,000 b/d fluidcatalytic cracker at Sines during the fourth quarter.
-- The EST unit at Italy's Sannazzaro refinery, offline since a fire inDecember 2016, was expected to restart at the end of 2018.
-- The next large-scale maintenance at Italy's Milazzo will be in 2019.
-- In spring 2019, a turnaround is scheduled at Sweden's Gothenburg refineryfor regeneration of the reformer unit, inspection of the ISOGHT unit, decokingof CDU1, and a change of catalyst in the DHT 3, ISOM, GHT, ISOGHT. The nextmajor turnaround at Gothenburg will be in 2021.
-- The next major turnaround at Sweden's Lysekil will be in autumn 2019. After2019, the company plans to run the major turnarounds every six years but witha total refinery shutdown every three years to perform catalyst changeouts andcleaning/decoking of necessary units.
-- The next major maintenance at France's Gonfreville is planned for 2019.
-- The next major maintenance at the Netherlands' Zeeland will be in 2020.
-- Romania's Petrobrazi will undergo its next big turnaround in 2022.
UPGRADES
EXISTING ENTRIES
-- The new coker at ExxonMobil's Antwerp refinery was being tested andprocessing low sulfur fuel oil, a trading source said, adding that while theunit was still not producing diesel, it was "in line with expectations" anddue to be operational by the end of the year. ExxonMobil said on June 7 itexpected the new delayed coker at Antwerp "to be fully operational in 2018".The company also said the start-up was a complex process "and can take severalmonths".
-- Two refineries in Rotterdam -- Shell's Pernis and ExxonMobil's -- have beenworking on upgrades. Pernis said in early June a new unit was being preparedfor start-up and existing installations were being adapted. It did not specifythe unit, but the refinery was in the process of building a solventdeasphalter, due to be completed this year.
-- Israeli refiner Paz Group expected to complete construction of an OGRfacility at its Ashdod refinery by the end of June. The facility, due to beginoperation in July, was expected to improve the refinery's profitability.
-- Poland's Lotos said it was in discussions with the contractor to decide ona new work schedule to complete its major refinery modernization, the EFRAproject, which was 93.7% complete at the end of March.
-- Gazprom Neft has started construction of a delayed coker at its Pancevorefinery, with a target date for completion of 2019.
-- The Netherlands' Zeeland is starting work on an expansion of thehydrocracker, due for completion in 2020.
-- Shell is looking into building a solvent deasphalter plant at itsWesseling, Rhineland, refinery. Shell and ITM Power said they will build ahydrogen production plant at Wesseling, using electrolysis.
-- The revamp of the vacuum distillation unit at the Castellon refinery is ontrack to be completed in the summer.
-- Total is considering building intermediate feedstock desulfurization unitsand a hydrogen unit at France's Donges, but the investment depends onrerouting a railroad track that currently crosses the refinery.
-- Cepsa is due to carry out upgrades to the 2.1 million mt/year hydrocrackerand FCC units at La Rabida (Huelva) in Spain, it said, without setting a date.
-- Cepsa has an investment plan of Eur200 million ($232 million) from 2017-19to revamp the Isomax, fluid catalytic cracker, alkylation units at San Roqueand to build a methylene unit (Sorbex II).
-- Croatia's INA has been building a delayed coker at Rijeka, due forcompletion in 2021. Meanwhile, the company has been working on organizationalchanges for its two refineries, Rijeka and Sisak, which include the shutdownof the Sisak FCC and transportation of semi-finished product between Rijekaand Sisak.
-- Swiss commodity trader Gunvor is looking at options for its refinery inRotterdam aimed at meeting the International Maritime Organization'srequirements for low sulfur marine fuel from 2020, the company said, adding ithas not made any decision yet.
-- Poland's Plock refinery aims to complete a new visbreaker unit by the endof 2020.
-- Israel's Haifa District Court has rejected an appeal by Haifa Municipalityalong with six other neighboring communities and environmental groups againstthe proposed expansion of the Bazan refinery.
-- Swedish refiner Preem said it planned two new units to start up at itsrefineries in 2019 ahead of the new International Maritime Organization sulfurregulations. A new vacuum distillation will start up at Lysekil in Q1, 2019,and at its Gothenburg refinery, it plans to start up a new hydrogen unit, alsoin Q1, 2019.
LAUNCHES
EXISTING ENTRIES
-- Azeri state oil company Socar is considering the development of a secondrefinery in Turkey, in addition to its existing 214,000 b/d STAR refinery atAliaga on Turkey's central Aegean coast. Development of a second refinerywould be necessary if the company decided to go ahead with plans for a secondpetrochemical plant as its existing Petkim facility. A final investmentdecision was expected next March.
-- Turkey's Star will offer its first commercially produced products to thelocal market at the end of September or early October.
-- Turkey's Ersan Petrol plans to start construction of its 1.4 millionmt/year Nazli refinery at Kahramanmaras in southeast Turkey by the end of2018, with the plant expected to begin operations by the end of 2022.
