RIL to close Jamnagar refinery for 2-3 weeks

Reliance Industries will partially shut down its old Jamnagar refinery (J-1) for 2-3 weeks to carry out maintenance work.     

RIL will shut a 325,000 barrels per day crude distillation unit (CDU) at J-1 from July 3, a company statement said.     

The company had planned maintenance shutdown at the 660,000 barrels per day J-1 in April 2009 but delayed it to enable the adjacent only-for-exports refinery (J-2) to start all of the main processing units. The second CDU at J-2 was started a few days back.     

CDU is the main processing unit in a refinery which converts crude oil into products.     

"With other units in the refinery (J1) scheduled to be operating as usual, product sales and dispatches will continue at the normal levels during the (2-3 weeks) period," the statement said. "This shutdown will also be used as an opportunity for implementing significant efficiency improvement measures in the unit."     

Along with the the 3,25,000 bpd crude distillation unit (CDU), a 1,00,000 bpd diesel hydro desulphurisation unit and a vacuum gas oil hydrotreater was also to be shut in the first phase but it was not immediately known if RIL was actually shutting even these units.     

The second CDU of similar capacity and associated units would be shut in the second phase of maintenance that may take place in few weeks.