
London - Oil giant BP is restarting its 200,000-barrels-per-day crude distillation unit at its refinery in Lavera, southern France, after a maintenance shutdown since May, a refinery official said on Tuesday.
"The end of the turnaround was planned for July 10 and we are now in the process of putting the plant onstream, so it's on schedule," the official said.
"We're at the end of the recommissioning phase now and the unit will be back onstream with on-specification product by tomorrow," he added.
The Lavera refinery has a total crude distillation capacity of 200,000-bpd, all of it accounted for by the one CDU affected by the turnaround.
Converting units at the plant, which include a 30,000-bpd fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) and a smaller-scale reformer, both of them making gasoline and gasoline components, and a hydrotreater to cut sulphur content in oil products, were unaffected by the CDU shutdown.
The refinery official said the converting units were running normally during the CDU turnaround, utilising heavy oil products as feedstock for making lighter products like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
The official said BP would go ahead with a five-week turnaround at its 30,000-bpd FCC unit that will take place in November and December of this year.
PIN//Reuters
News ID 26493
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