Irving Oil Ltd. has started 8 weeks of scheduled maintenance at its 250,000-b/d St. John refinery in the eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick.
The annual fall turnaround, which will cost about $20 million (Can.), is intended to enhance the safety and reliability of the refinery and will involve over 2,000 workers working 24 hr/day, 7 days a week, for the duration of the maintenance period, the company said on Sept. 15.
“Our fall turnaround pushes our total sustaining refinery capital investments to over $200 million (Can.) for 2014,” said Mark Sherman, general manager of the refinery.
Details regarding processing capacity at the refinery during the turnaround or the specific units involved in the maintenance were not disclosed.
Irving previously took the St. John refinery down for a 6-week, $60 million (Can.) turnaround in March, which involved maintenance and upgrading work on several unidentified units in the refinery’s Central, South and East Process areas. That project included cleaning, equipment inspection, repairs, replacements, and piping upgrades (OGJ Online, Mar. 3, 2014).
