Irving Oil Ltd. will undertake the largest turnaround in the privately held company’s history beginning next month at its 300,000-b/d St. John refinery in the eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick.
The $200-million (Can.) scheduled maintenance project, called Operation Falcon, will begin on Sept. 16 and will involve work to improve the safety, reliability, and long-term competitiveness of the refinery, which is Canada’s largest, the company said.
While Irving confirmed the turnaround will include substantial upgrades to numerous areas of operations at the refinery, the company did not disclose details regarding the specific units involved in the project or possible impacts to production during the maintenance period.
Irving previously took the St. John refinery down for an 8-week, $20 million (Can.) turnaround last September, which involved unidentified work to ensure the ongoing safety and reliability of plant operations (OGJ Online, Sept. 15, 2014).
Earlier in 2014, the company completed a 6-week, $60-million (Can.) round of planned work that entailed maintenance and upgrades 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).
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
