Essar Oil to shut Vadinar refinery for 30 days

New Delhi: Essar Oil Wednesday said it will from Friday shutdown its 20 million tons Vadinar Refinery in Gujarat for 30 days for carrying out maintenance work.

Vadinar refinery will be shut from September 18 to October 17, the company said in a statement.

"During this period, Essar Oil will undertake major maintenance and inspection jobs of all its refinery units and also complete the conversion of the Vacuum Gas Oil Hydrotreater (VGOHT) unit to Mild Hydrocracker unit (D-Max Project)," it said.

The last such major planned shutdown was taken in Sept/Oct 2011.

"There will be no production during this period," it said.

Being a continuous process industry, refinery shutdown is a meticulously planned operation which refineries need to undertake once every 3-4 years in order to maintain their operational reliability since all major units typically operate under high temperature and pressure and are subject to wear and tear as well as corrosion.

During this period, all the units are thoroughly inspected and wherever required, repairs/replacements are carried out. This opportunity is also used for undertaking debottlenecking activities and improvement in facilities.

Essar Oil last undertook its turnaround shutdown in September-October 2011, when it connected the base refinery with expanded units, which were then bought on-stream in phases in 2012.