5th Dung Quat Refinery Overall Maintenance: Safety, quality, progress, cost optimization

(PetroTimes) – As planned, on March 15, Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Joint Stock Company (BSR) will stop the machine and perform the 5th General Maintenance (GM) of Dung Quat Oil Refinery. This is considered a key task of BSR in 2024 with an expected implementation time of 48 days, meeting 4 goals: Safety, Quality, Progress and Cost Optimization.

Looking back at the victories of the 4th BDTT

The 4th maintenance period took place over 51 days, from August 12 to October 1, 2020. Unlike previous maintenance periods, the 4th maintenance period encountered many difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic, stormy weather, shortage of skilled human resources, and the age of the plant’s equipment after more than 10 years of operation. To carry out maintenance in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, BSR workers and contractors’ personnel seriously implemented epidemic prevention measures. At the same time, many experts and engineers from abroad could not enter Vietnam due to the limited number of international flights due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. With the active support of the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam), BSR has made efforts and coordinated with ministries, departments, branches, and Quang Ngai provincial authorities to bring 255 experts from 16 countries, not infected with Covid-19, to Vietnam to carry out the 4th BDTT.

The 5th general maintenance of Dung Quat Oil Refinery: Safety, quality, progress, cost optimization
The 4th general maintenance of Dung Quat Oil Refinery took place in the context of the Covid-19 outbreak and the risk of storms and floods.
In the 4th general maintenance in 2020, Dung Quat Oil Refinery had 7 main packages to perform. The total number of work items to be done was 7,458 items, of which BSR itself undertook to perform more than 3,200 items. The total number of maintenance personnel at that time was nearly 4,700 people. After 51 days and nights, the 4th general maintenance was completed safely and achieved more than 1.4 million safe working hours, with no work accidents.

Mr. Tran Tan Chuc – Head of BSR Maintenance and Repair Department said that among the 7 packages in the 4th BDTT, package 1 was assessed to be the most complicated with the main work items being the replacement and repair of 4 CT-1504 secondary cyclones of the 2nd floor regeneration tower and valve maintenance. The work encountered many difficulties due to the repair and maintenance of materials with high pressure water; lifting, adjusting, installing and repairing 18 tons of insulation materials inside a space only enough for one person to work. In addition, each cyclone is 12m in size, weighs 5 tons and is carried out in a limited space, many jobs must be carried out at the same time, so the staff performing the work encountered many challenges. However, with the experience and courage of experts and engineers, package 1 was successfully implemented, ensuring safety and quality.

During the 4th BDTT in 2020, the SPM buoy (crude oil pumping buoy) was maintained for the first time after more than 10 years of operation. Therefore, the maintenance of the SPM buoy also encountered many difficulties in the context of a shortage of experienced international experts and harsh weather conditions, with storm No. 5 about to make landfall in the Dung Quat sea area.

In the 7 main bidding packages, for the work packages performed by BSR itself, many complex work items, performed for the first time at BSR such as upgrading the MCS, DCS, ESD systems… were all performed by BSR to ensure safety, quality and success.

During the 2020 maintenance period, many new management and technical solutions were applied for the first time, bringing economic benefits as well as progress. Thanks to that, on September 31, 2020, Dung Quat Oil Refinery produced the first product line after the maintenance period and on October 1, 2020, all workshops of the Plant were loaded and safely restarted, marking the end of the 4th Dung Quat Oil Refinery Maintenance Period, successfully achieving the 4 set goals: Safety, quality, progress and cost optimization.

Ready to do, determined to complete the 5th BDTT

BSR sets 4 goals for the 5th BDTT: Safety: No accidents causing lost work hours, fire, explosion, security; Quality: No leakage incidents, no redo work, no hot sports in the next 4 years of operation; Progress: Ensure approved progress; Cost: Do not exceed approved costs, strive to reduce costs by 5-10%.

Currently, the preparation work for the 5th BDTT has been completed, such as developing and submitting for approval KPIs, organizational chart for the preparation of the 5th BDTT, building a list of work, separating the volume of materials/services and costs, purchasing goods and services, contractor selection plan and implementation plan. During this maintenance period, BSR and contractors will maintain 546 static mechanical equipment, 977 pipeline equipment, 67 mechanical equipment, 275 electrical equipment, 3,195 automation equipment and 67 improvement projects (MOC) and 07 Tie-in projects.

At this 5th BDTT, BSR will implement 06 main service projects related to static mechanical equipment and pipelines by a consortium of contractors and external services; 04 projects related to electrical equipment, rotating equipment, automation and valve disassembly and assembly will be implemented by BSR; in addition, there is 01 ICS project and 01 chemical cleaning project during the shutdown phase (Chemical cleaning). With more than 14 contractors, more than 135 experts (Manufacturers, Copyrighters and design consultants, independent inspectors and consultants, maintenance supervisors) at home and abroad participating in the implementation with BSR.

The “critical progress path” of the 5th BDTT will include major tasks such as repairing/replacing airing in the RFCC area (Catalytic cracking workshop); replacing slive valves: SV-1501, SV-1503; replacing Center pipe in the R-1304 regeneration tower; converting/improving the T-1107 tower; overhauling important compressors C-1551, C-2401, C-1301… Accordingly, the technical solution that BSR intends to apply in this 5th BDTT is the solution of pre-fabricating the suction pipe system and increasing the capacity of the hot catalyst suction machine at the RFCC workshop; the solution of designing and installing a layered scaffolding to perform parallel work in the regeneration towers and the D-1501/1502/1503 reaction towers of the R&R cluster of the RFCC workshop; Apply 3D/4D simulation solutions in the process of building construction measures, dismantling, maintaining and repairing equipment…

After the 5th general maintenance, Dung Quat Refinery will increase the time between general maintenance periods to 4 years – in sync with the upgrading and expansion project being implemented. To successfully implement the 5th general maintenance, BSR has set the slogan “We are one team – One goal”. The overall goal of the 5th general maintenance of Dung Quat Refinery will be: Safety, Quality, Progress, Cost optimization.

Chinh Linh (PetroTimes)