Petronor’s Múskiz refinery begins major turnaround event

Repsol SA subsidiary Petróleos del Norte SA (Petronor) has started the first major turnaround in 6 years at its 220,000-b/d refinery and industrial complex at Múskiz, near Bilbao, Biscay Province, in Spain’s northern autonomous Basque Country.

Initiated on May 15, the €89-million ($99.6-million) turnaround of the refinery’s crude distillation Plant 1 involves the shutdown of 14 units at which more than 393 pieces of equipment will be opened, cleaned, inspected, and reconditioned to ensure optimal operating conditions as part of the operator’s ongoing program of improving safety, efficiency, and emissions reductions at the site, Petronor said in a series of releases.

In addition to routine maintenance and inspections of unit columns, tanks furnaces, chimneys, and flares, the turnaround also will include implementation of works related to new investments aimed at upgrading some of the Múskiz refinery’s existing units, according to the operator.

Specifically, the investment-related work will cover:

• Adjustments to the Plant 1 crude unit’s preflash column—installed in March 2024—to enable its separation of lighter products (e.g., butane, gasoline) without requiring their heating via furnace. The upgrade will help reduce the site’s carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by more than 26,000 tonnes/year, Petronor said.
• Associated modifications to the Plant 1 crude unit’s main column.
• Various but unidentified improvements to furnaces.
• Replacement of the G3 desulfurization unit’s internal reactors.

As in Plant 1’s previously executed turnaround—which occurred in 2019—the current turnaround also will include automation of “key production processes,” the operator said.

Petronor said it expects to complete the Plant 1 turnaround by mid-July.

Additional maintenance events

The operator said in a May 14 releases that the Múskiz refinery’s fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit—which, at the time, was in the process of starting up—would be shuttered for maintenance alongside unidentified associated downstream units.

Further details regarding the status of operations at the FCC have yet to be disclosed.

In a separate release on May 16, Petronor said it was in the process of restarting the refinery’s G4 desulfurization unit, H4 hydrogen desulfurization unit, and HD3 hydrodesulfurization unit.

The operator said it shut down the trio of desulfurization units on May 15 following an instrumentation failure at the H4 unit.

While the FCC and desulfurization units events occurred in proximity to the start of the Plant 1 scheduled turnaround, Petronor did not indicate the events were related to the turnaround process