MRPL aims to restart hydrocracker on May 20

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd will restart a hydrocracker on May 20 after a near one month closure, its managing director P.P. Upadhya said.

The company has idled a fifth of its 300,000 barrels per day capacity due to the hydrocracker shutdown.

The 1.6 million-tonne-a-year hydrocracker has been shut since April 23 for a change of catalyst, Upadhya said.

"We had to shut the crude units to avoid ullage problem that were created by the surplus generation of vacuum gasoil," Upadhya said, adding the 60,000 bpd crude unit would resume operation by the end of this month.

Upadhya also said that MRPL has no plan to shut other units in the refinery for maintenance in 2014.

 

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma, editing by William Hardy)