Processing activities at Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) remained partially suspended on Aug. 27 following a fire that broke out Aug. 20 at its 415,000-b/d Replan refinery in Paulínia, Sao Paulo, Brazil (OGJ Online, Aug. 23, 2018).
The temporary closure follows notification to Petrobras from Brazil’s National Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels Agency (ANP) on Aug. 24 for a continued partial shutdown of the Replan facility as a precautionary measure, Petrobras said.
Despite the halt on processing activities, however, utilities, tankage, and product-delivery operations at the refinery continue, the company said.
The precautionary suspension of processing operations at the site stems from the Aug. 20 fire, whose origin was an explosion in a tank of one of the acidic water units associated with the U-220A catalytic cracking unit, which also impacted one of the refinery’s atmospheric distillation units (U-200), the operator said.
Petrobras—which currently is compiling documents and information required by the ANP attesting to appropriate safety conditions for safely resuming operations of processing units not impacted by the incident—said it expects to restart production processes during the next few days following the ANP’s lifting of the precautionary shutdown measure.
The company disclosed no details regarding the severity of the incident’s impact to the U-200 and U-220A units.
Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].
