Reliance to shut vacuum gas oil unit for a month

Top refiner Reliance Industries plans to shutdown a 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) vacuum gas oil (VGO) hydrotreater at its old refinery for about a month later this week, an industry source said on Monday.                                           

"VGO hydrotreater will be shut for 20-30 days to change the catalyst. The shutdown will begin from Wednesday or Thursday," the source told reporters.                                           

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries operates the world's biggest refining complex, at Jamnagar in Gujarat, that has a total processing capacity of 1.24 million bpd of crude.                                           

Reliance's old 660,000 bpd refinery at Jamnagar has two VGO units each with 100,000 bpd capacity.                                           

The source said there would be no impact on throughput due to the shutdown.                                           

A VGO hydrotreater removes sulphur from heavy feedstock to produce naphtha, jet fuel and liquefied petroleum gas.