MRPL Delays Full Start-up Of Coker Due To Tech Snag

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals has delayed full-scale start-up of a 3 million-tonne-a-year coker due to technical snag, two company sources said.

MRPL had shut the coker, a 60,000-barrels-per-day crude unit, a diesel hydro treater and a hydrocracker in phases at its 300,000-bpd refinery in Southern India from the second week of August, its spokesman B Prashanth Baliga said in an email.

"We will be starting the coker in 2-3 days. One of the two heaters linked to the unit got damaged during the start-up, so initially, we will be operating the coker at 50-60 percent capacity with one heater," said a company source.

He said the coker will operate at 100 percent capacity only after the damaged heater is fixed. He did not specify any timeline for the full scale start-up of the unit.

Baliga did not comment on any technical problems with the coker. He said the units are expected to resume operations from the first week of September.

"Hydrocracker unit is expected to resume operations from mid-September after catalyst changeover jobs are done," Baliga added.

(Reuters)