World's largest refinery aims to boost reliability
An
ABB Engineering Services product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Jan 12, 2006
ABB has been selected by Petroleos de Venezuela to improve reliability and reduce the downtime of critical equipment at the Paraguana Refining Centre, the largest oil refinery in the world.
ABB has been selected by Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) to improve reliability and reduce the downtime of critical equipment at the Paraguana Refining Centre, the largest oil refinery in the world.
ABB expects the project to result in a substantial increase in equipment reliability and a reduction in downtime of at least 30%.
A benchmarking analysis developed by ABB Engineering Services (previously ABB Eutech) identified the main source of downtime at the refinery as motors and pumps.
There are some 2500 sets of motors and pumps at the complex, many of which were found to be performing poorly in terms of reliability, availability and quality.
The 20 most critical sets of pumps and motors were selected for immediate attention to improve performance factors like motor-pump alignment and leakage prevention, and to boost the efficiency of maintenance programmes and spare parts availability.
Training was enhanced to raise staff competence in matters like laser alignment, lubrication, maintenance procedures and spare parts management.
The Paraguana complex consists of two refineries, Cardon and Amuay, which have a combined capacity of 940,000 barrels a day - the biggest in the world.
Reliability centred maintenance will be introduced and, at a later stage when the project extends to all 2500 sets of motors and pumps at the facility, ABB will implement its Equipment Performance Management programme to maintain a targeted level of availability.
The 2500 sets of motors and pumps account for 80% of the refinery's energy consumption.
In a later phase of the project ABB will help PDVSA improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions at the refinery.
ABB has a strong track record of benchmarking equipment reliability at other refineries in the region on behalf of Monomeros in Colombia and another PDVSA complex at Pequiven in Venezuela.
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