Petrobras begins turnaround of RECAP refinery

Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has temporarily shuttered its 57,000-b/d Refinaria de Capuava (RECAP) in Mauá, São Paulo, Brazil, to carry out nearly 4 weeks of previously scheduled maintenance.

Initiated on Apr. 20, the planned turnaround will last about 25 days and include routine maintenance aimed at preserving equipment integrity, reliability, and workforce safety, as well as works to increase the refinery’s production efficiency and environmental performance in line with Petrobras’ 2024-28+ strategic plan, said Márcia Cristina Andrade, RECAP’s general manager.

The planned 160-million real ($30.7-million) turnaround event—which, at its peak, will involve 1,500 direct and mostly regional contract personnel—specifically will include replacing reactors of the refinery’s hydrotreaters to ensure the units’ maximum efficiency and production qualities for very low-sulfur, low-nitrogen Diesel S-10 and Gasoline S-50, Petrobras said.

Without identifying other specific units at which refining equipment would be replaced during the maintenance period, Petrobras told investors in late-January 2024 that RECAP’s 2024 turnaround would require replacement of:

• 31 heat exchangers.
• 3 unidentified vessels.
• 7 reactors (presumably in the hydrotreaters).
• 2 furnaces.

The refinery’s scheduled shutdown, however, will not impact RECAP’s supply of products to the market, according to the company.

“Our [turnaround] planning always foresees [building up stocks ahead of] shutdowns and, during them, we work in an integrated manner with the commercial and logistics areas to guarantee service to our customers,” Andrade said.

Alongside RECAP’s supply of gasoline and diesel—which, together, account for about 30% of Greater São Paulo’s overall fuel consumption—the refinery also supplies products to the Grande ABC petrochemical complex in the nearby ABC region of Greater São Paulo.

As part of an overall $776 million in new investments dedicated under the company’s 2024-28+ strategic plan to RefTOP—a multiyear modernization program consisting of initiatives designed to improve efficiency and operational performance of Petrobras refineries, including projects at the sites in line with the operator’s commitment to decarbonize corporate-wide operations by 2050—RECAP is also due a new crude oil boiler by 2030, according to a January presentation to investors.

A definitive timeline for the boiler’s replacement has yet to be revealed.