Part of RIL refinery heading for maintenance after Nayara’s Vadinar refinery comes back online in mid-May

A part of Reliance Industries’ 33 million tonnes per annum refinery would be heading for planned maintenance shutdown after Nayara Energy’s Vadinar refinery returns to operations, Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Petroleum Ministry told reporters Wednesday at the inter-ministerial briefing on the situation in West Asia.

“Right now, Nayara [Energy’s] refinery is under shutdown which will come back mid of this month or before that, after that Reliance [refinery’s planned maintenance] shutdown will start,” the senior bureaucrat told reporters.

Planned maintenance shutdowns are routine at refineries. They are undertaken to sort repair work, preserve life cycle of equipment and ensure safety during operations. It takes about four weeks for refineries to complete their planned maintenance and return to operations.

Speaking to the reporters, Ms. Sharma elaborated that the government is seeking to ensure that shutdown of refineries is regulated such that all of them do not shut down together.

“We in the ministry try to ensure that all the shutdowns do not happen at one time, and it is scattered so that the supply for domestic market is not affected,” she stated whilst elaborating on the sequential maintenance shutdowns.

Rosneft-backed Nyara Energy’s Vadinar refinery shut for maintenance April 9 this year.

It was initially scheduled to shut in December last year. However, this was postponed as European sanctions impacted the refiner’s ability to acquire critical equipment required for maintenance.