Irving Oil conducts FCCU turnaround maintenance at St. John plant

Oct. 9, 2002
Irving Oil Ltd., St. John, NB, currently has maintenance turnaround activities under way at its refinery at St. John. The refinery's fluid catalytic cracking unit was taken offline Sept. 27.

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Oct. 9 -- Irving Oil Ltd., St. John, NB, currently has maintenance turnaround activities under way at its refinery at St. John. The refinery's fluid catalytic cracking unit was taken offline Sept. 27 for adjustments to the unit and installation of new equipment.

The work, which will take a minimum of 25 days to complete, represents the first full turnaround on the FCCU since March 1997, said a company representative. It was commissioned in 1960 with a capacity of 8,300 b/d, but upgrades to the unit have since increased its capacity to 25,000 b/d.

The FCCU is being cleaned, inspected, and new feed nozzles installed, along with other technological upgrades.

Meanwhile, Irving is using the refinery's residual fluid catalytic cracking unit process for its operations. "The. . .quality of our refinery products will remain unchanged during the FCCU turnaround," said Carl Block, the Irving refinery's general manager.