Maintenance wraps on Baku refinery units

State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) has completed maintenance work on the atmospheric and vacuum distillation units within its 239,000-b/d Heydar Aliyev (formerly New Baku) refinery at Baku, Azerbaijan.

Installation and repair work for the refinery’s vacuum distillation column has wrapped, with the unit now returned to normal operation, the company said.

SOCAR previously anticipated installations and repairs for vacuum unit, including the replacement of vacuum heat exchangers, to last about 30 days (OGJ Online, Apr. 22, 2014).

Repair work on the plant’s atmospheric column, which was scheduled to run for 21 days, was completed earlier in the month, according to a May 12 release from SOCAR (OGJ Online, Apr. 22, 2014).

Major repair work also remains under way on the refinery’s catalytic cracking unit, but a timeframe for when maintenance would be completed remained unavailable (OGJ Online, Apr. 11, 2014).

While the company said production yields have improved as a result of work on the atmospheric and vacuum distillation towers, SOCAR did not disclose current production rates at the plant.