Extending turnaround intervals is a common strategy used by refineries and process plants to increase uptime and improve profitability.
However, longer intervals introduce operational and regulatory risks, along with added organizational constraints, that must be carefully evaluated.
A maintenance turnaround is a planned shutdown for inspection, maintenance, cleaning or repairs. Because production stops during a turnaround, facilities often look for ways to defer turnaround work. This may be done to capture favorable market conditions, manage budget constraints or improve longterm production efficiency through longer operating cycles. By extending the time between turnarounds, a site may reduce downtime and increase productive operating time over the life of the facility. However, there are several important considerations when evaluating a longer turnaround interval.
Issues and risks involved in longterm interval extension
Practical limits to extension. Turnaround intervals are constrained by regulatory inspection requirements, process limitations and established equipment maintenance strategies. While approaches such as Risk-Based Inspection (RBI) can help extend intervals, there is ultimately a limit to how far they can be pushed.
Increasing turnaround size and complexity. Longer intervals typically result in larger turnaround events. As scope, cost, duration and complexity increase, the benefits of a longer operating cycle may diminish.
Organizational and workforce constraints. Larger turnarounds place greater demands on supervision, logistics, contractor availability and workforce capability. In some cases, sites reconsider extended intervals because turnaround events become too large to manage effectively.
Less flexibility for capital projects. Longer intervals reduce opportunities to tie in capital projects, potentially delaying benefits and affecting investment decisions.
How to evaluate whether to extend turnaround intervals
When assessing the viability of extending turnaround intervals, sites should first consider the maximum turnaround size they can realistically manage. In many cases, site organizational capacity and contractor availability become limiting factors long before technical constraints are reached. Sites must also weigh the production gains from a longer operating cycle against the larger turnaround that will eventually result. They must understand inspection and maintenance limits and consider how a larger turnaround could affect feedstock, storage and customer supply agreements.
Balancing uptime and risk
There may be economic advantages to extending turnaround intervals. However, those benefits must be carefully weighed against regulatory requirements, equipment limitations, organizational capacity and execution risk. A successful strategy requires balancing the desire for increased uptime with the practical realities of maintaining safe, reliable operations.
For more information, visit becht.com.
