Refinery maintenance planned in India and China

During Q3 and 4 of this year, Indian and Chinese refiners are going to have to conduct very heavy maintenance work if they wish to avoid any potential slowdown in production. A new report from GlobalData highlights that Indian refineries are taking advantage of the lower demand season by performing a large amount of scheduled maintenance work.

‘Crude oil sellers and traders have their eyes on the Asia Pacific region’s refineries. Any potential slowdown in refined product demand in China or India would be likely to have a knock on effect on the rest of the region and would affect throughputs. Some of these refiners could extend their planned maintenance periods if the economics dictated staying shutdown made more sense from a fiscal perspective,’ said Jeffrey Kerr, GlobalData’s Managing Analyst for Downstream Oil and Gas.

Planned maintenance in India

• Indian Oil Company: 45 day full plant turn around during Q3 at its 160 000 bpd refinery at Mathura.
• Indian Oil Company: 15 day fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) turnaround at the Mathura refinery.
• Bharat Petroleum: full maintenance on an atmospheric distillation unit at the Kochi refinery in Q4.
• Bharat Petroleum: full maintenance on a 50 200 bpd diesel hydrotreating unit at the Kochi refinery.

Planned maintenance in China

• Fhjian Refining and Petrochemicals: 50 day full plant turnaround at the 280 000 bpd Fujian refinery.

Don’t forget Brazil

Brazil is another of the emerging countries that will also be carrying out heavy maintenance work during the second half of this year. Petrobras managed to reduce gasoline imports to 81 000 bpd in the second quarter of the year, but this level will be difficult to maintain as work is scheduled for two of its refineries during Q4. High levels of refinery output will also be difficult for Petrobras for the remainder of the year due to scheduled plans.

‘It will be a couple of years before Brazil’s next two under construction refineries come onstream, meaning that Brazil will continue to be a net importer of refined products from the US for some time to come,’ said Kerr.

Adapted from a press release by Claira Lloyd.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/12092013/india_china_refinery_maintenance648/