Esmeraldas refinery expects to increase its work in January

Refinery of Esmeraldas

The Esmeraldas refinery, the largest in Ecuador, with capacity to process 110,000 barrels of oil (bdp), currently works at half capacity after a fire occurred last month in one of its units. It is expected that during the first week of January processing levels are normalized, as it was stated by Petroecuador last Monday.

On November 28, the refinery had to stop two crude units by a fire that occurred in the area of ​​bombs, forcing the reduction of the processing capacity of the plant to a minimum.

“We are currently processing between 50,000 to 55,000 barrels per day. As of January 6 it will gradually reach normal levels,” said a spokesman for Petroecuador.

The second unit Oil refinery came into operation from December 2, while the Crude Unit 1 will start working from January 6. The authorities stated that the fire did not affect the unity of Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC), the most important of the refinery and continues to operate normally.

In April 2014 it would start the official modernization plan that will begin with the suspension of scheduled refinery units. It should be noted that the plan has been delayed several times.