Udaya Gubbala - ORPIC
Virendra Manral - Chevron Lummus Global
On March 4th, 2019, ORPIC Refinery in Oman experienced a power failure and subsequent total refinery blackout, including loss of all utilities. One of the drums was in a coking service for less than 2 hours before the blackout occurred. This resulted in a reverse flow of cracking material back into the transfer line and Coker heater, which coked up and plugged the heater coils. This case study details the challenges faced by ORPIC in cleaning the plugged coils and handling the tarry coke drum safely before restarting the unit. This case study will also provide recommendations for avoiding or mitigating such emergency situations in the future.