PJSC Tatneft, Almetyevsk, Russia, is undertaking a 3-week turnaround at the more than 10 million-tonnes/year refinery of subsidiary JSC Taneco’s multiphase integrated refining and petrochemical complex in Nizhnekamsk, 250 km from Tatarstan’s capital city of Kazan.
The scheduled maintenance overhaul—which began on June 10 and will run to July 2—will include works to ensure the safe, reliable operation of process equipment at the refinery’s 2.4 million-tpy sulfur dioxide (SO2) visbreaking unit and 2 million-tpy SO2-oil vacuum distillation unit, Tatneft said on June 11.
Scheduled major repairs during the turnaround include the following:
- Replacing vacuum column nozzles.
- Cleaning process deposits from unit equipment.
- Ultrasonic thickness-gauging of furnace coils.
- Technical inspection of tanks, vessels, and pipelines.
- Hydraulic testing.
- Modifying instrumentation and automation controls.
Particular attention will be paid during maintenance work to ensure compliance with sanitary and epidemiological standards for preventing proliferation of coronavirus (COVID-19), Tatneft said.
Per Taneco’s turnaround procedures, overhaul activities will be carried out in a manner that enables minimizing equipment downtime while allowing all work to be fully completed on installations and interconnections. As such, operation of other process units not involved in the turnaround will continue to operate normally to ensure yields of petroleum products in accordance with the refinery’s approved production plan, according to the company.
