OMV Petrom wraps turnaround at Petrobrazi refinery

OMV Petrom SA, Bucharest, has resumed operations on May 28 following the on-schedule completion of a major 6-week turnaround at its 4.5 million-tonne/year Petrobrazi refinery in the southeast region of Romania, near Ploiesti City.

The €45-million planned turnaround included periodical maintenance works, inspections, and verifications of refinery installations, OMV Petrom said.

“I am happy that this turnaround, which consisted [of] tens of thousands of different operations, went extremely smooth, without any significant incidents and lost time injuries, while ensuring continuity of supply to our filling stations network,” said Neil Anthony Morgan, OMV Petrom’s executive board member responsible for downstream operations.

With the turnaround completed, the refinery is now fully operational and able to process more than 12,000 tonnes/day of crude, Morgan added.

The Petrobrazi refinery’s next turnaround is scheduled for 2022, OMV Petrom said.

Further details regarding specific projects executed during the turnaround were not revealed.

Between 2005 and 2017, the Petrobrazi refinery benefitted from more than €1.5 billion in investments dedicated to modernization projects, construction of new installations, and environmental projects, enabling the refinery to extend turnaround events to every 4 years beginning in 2014 from its previous annual turnaround schedule (OGJ Online, July 24, 2014).

Construction remains under way at the refinery on a grassroots 200,000-tpy unit that will convert LPG components into Euro 5-quality gasoline and middle distillates beginning in early 2019 (OGJ Online, July 19, 2017).

Contact Robert Brelsford at [email protected].