The Ancap authorities had warned that the La Teja refinery restart process —After the strike resolved by the entity’s union (Fancap) last Tuesday — it could generate a headache. This Thursday, at a press conference, the Minister of Industry, Omar Paganini, together with the head of Ancap, Alejandro Stipanicic, they reported a valve failure in the catalytic cracking process (conversion of hydrocarbons into value-added products), something that will delay the start-up of the refinery. its reparation can demand between 7 and 10 days and will cause a millionaire damage to the oil entity.
Paganini explained that it is a “major unit” of the refinery that has a “serious defect” that prevents it from operating again as planned. “It seemed appropriate to us to inform the population. This is not the responsibility of the government or the Ancap administration, but of a union measure that we warned at the time of the risk that there could be and that we have unfortunately confirmed,” said the minister.
The Minister of Industry added that this failure means that the refinery is producing below its potential. In addition, it indicated that It has economic consequences for the country because it forces Ancap to reinforce its contingency measures, basically to appeal to the importation of refined fuels from abroad to meet domestic demand. “It is going to cause significant (economic) damage to the company,” he said.
The loss of profit For each day that production is stopped at La Teja, it will be between US $ 300 thousand and US $ 500 thousand. If the plant is idle for 10 days, the entity can lose about US $ 5 million.
“The president of Ancap reported that they have reinforced purchase decisions to ensure that citizens have access to the fuel they need,” said Paganini.
The manager explained that the unscheduled shutdown of the refinery caused a “significant temperature change” in the operation of the catalytic cracking process. This leads to some materials being able to break. Currently, this unit is being dismantled to identify the fault of the valve that regulates the entire cracking process. “Perhaps it has some material that is obstructing it,” said the Minister of Industry.
The electric bulb that failed
The president of Ancap had compared turning the refinery on and off with that of an electric light bulb: “An incandescent light bulb that is turned on never burns, it only burns when you turn it on or off. The same thing happens in the refinery. Normally it doesn’t happen. nothing, but when you turn it off or when you turn it on, it is such a complex system with so many different components that it is highly probable that something will fail. “ The drawbacks in that process may take “two to three weeks” in getting ready and therefore, Inventories would run out of margin before repair, Stipanicic said.
Inventories are enough to supply between 15 and 20 days, depending on the product.
Periodically, the refinery has planned shutdowns for maintenance. In the event of an unforeseen stop, the further away from the last maintenance, the more risk of failure the maneuver entails. The plant was stopped for this purpose for the last time in 2017 and the next, which will be in 2023, has been planned since 2019.
