The Good News and Bad News on Refineries
Posted by Prof. Goose on September 9, 2005 - 1:25pm
A piece from OPIS today asks, "Just how long will badly damaged or flooded Louisiana and Mississippi refineries be down?"
There's no shortage of rhetoric on what needs to be done, how long it will take, and the obstacles to be overcome in restoring a sense of normalcy to Katrina-impacted refineries. But the commentary emanating from regulatory press offices or refinery PR spokespeople is muddied by sensitivity to the human elements and spin from those with a vested interest. With that in mind, OPIS staff talked to refining veterans who had dealt with significant storms that hit Gulf Coast plants in recent years.Interesting summary piece.
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Any rotating machinery that was flooded would have to be disassembled and cleaned at the very least. Running it dirty would wreck it.
Motors, compressors, control system, switchgear, cooling towers, and probably substation. Weeks easily even if repairs are run 24/7.
If the refineries are not within the flooded area that was supposed to be protected by New Orleans' failed levees, then I wouldn't expect that they had any substantial period of standing water. Only refineries within the city flood basin itself, built below sea level, should have significant flood damage.
I could imagine that some refineries outside the city may not yet have been inspected, not because they are standing in flood waters but merely because of rescue operations keeping people out of the general area, along with road damage making the site inaccessible. The article made it sound like the refineries are actually flooded, though, and I wonder if that's accurate.
There are plenty of local low points in a refinery layout, and once flooded they would tend to stay flooded if the storm drains were inoperative.