Reliance Restarts FCCU at New Refinery

India's Reliance Industries has restarted a giant fluid catalytic cracker unit (FCCU) at its 580,000 barrels-per-day refinery after a nearly week-long unplanned shutdown, two trade sources said on Tuesday. They said the unit was restarted on Monday evening and was expected to reach full capacity this evening.

Sources said Reliance had shut the unit on June 13 after it encountered a technical snag. No official comment was available from Reliance.

In May 2009, Reliance started a 200,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) FCCU, the world's largest, at its export-focussed refinery, located next to the old 660,000-bpd plant in Jamnagar in western Gujarat state. The FCCU converts vacuum gas oil into light value-added products like liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline-blending components and diesel. The 580,000-bpd refinery started operations in late December 2008. In its annual report for the 2009/10 fiscal (April-March), Reliance said the refinery achieved peak capacity utilisation rate of 120% during the year.