Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical, a joint venture between Saudi Arabian Oil Co. and Petroliam Nasional Bhd., or Petronas, has begun restarting a crude distillation unit at its Malaysian oil refinery, Reuters reported Aug. 17 citing a statement from Petronas.
"We confirm that the refinery has started feeding crude to its [crude distillation unit] earlier this week in efforts to restart the plant," Petronas said in an email to Reuters.
In April, a fire on the atmospheric residue desulfurization, or ARDS, unit of the Pengerang Refining development's refinery caused it to stop trial runs for safety checks. Petronas originally planned to restart the unit in July but moved it to August, the report said.
Sources speaking to Reuters said the repairs for the ARDS unit may take months so the refinery has modified the type of crude it processes to low-sulfur oil. The unit is slated to come back online in 2020, Petronas said.
The Pengerang Refining development, originally known as the Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development, is comprised of a 300,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery and a 7.7-million-tonne-per-year petrochemical complex. It is part of Petronas' $27 billion Pengerang integrated complex.
