RI refinery units to shut

RI refinery units to shut

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Indonesia's state-owned oil firm Pertamina will shut two secondary processing units at its Balikpapan refinery on March 1 for a scheduled one-month maintenance, Pertamina sources told Reuters yesterday.

The refinery's 34,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) reforming unit, which produces gasoline, will be shut to change a reforming tube, they said. The units hydrogen and nitrogen plants will also be shut, the sources said.

Balikpapan's 27,500 bpd hydrocracking unit-3B will also be shut for technical assessments, they said.

Balikpapan's hydrocracking complex has two trains. The second train, which has the same capacity, will remain operational, they said.

The hydrocracker increases the refinery yield of reformate, a gasoline blending component, diesel and kerosene.

They said there were no other maintenance shutdowns scheduled for this year. Balikpapan underwent a major shutdown in August- September last year.

Another major maintenance turnaround is scheduled for September, 1997, involving the refinery's hydrocracking complex, vacuum distillation unit, naphtha hydrotreater, platinum reformer and liquefied petroleum gas plant.

The Balikpapan complex, in east Kalimantan province, has two refineries, one with a processing capacity of 200,000 bpd and the other has a capacity of over 50,000 bpd.