The coronavirus pandemic has affected US refinery maintenance over the next year, industry sources said. The health crisis has caused weak demand, which typically creates a chance for companies to conduct maintenance. However, prices also collapsed, forcing firms to slash costs and focus only on essential works.
Turnaround requires specialists, experts, and contractors to come to the sites. However, refiners are now required to implement strict health and safety protocol to prevent the disease from spreading further. Hence, drawing hundreds or thousands of contractors to refinery sites is now more complicated.
Marathon Petroleum has continued maintenance at some refineries but delayed unspecified works into 2021. Phillips 66 finished a heavy turnaround work and unplanned maintenance in the first quarter before travel and gathering restrictions came in place, but it deferred remaining projects. Refiner HollyFrontier and PBF delayed scheduled maintenance from the second half of this year into 2021.
Maintenance contractor Matrix Service expected turnaround work to resume in the third or fourth quarter of 2020. The pandemic curbs contractors’ ability to send their personnel to the refining facilities. The number of workers entering refinery sites is also limited to manage infection risks, meaning that maintenance work may need to take a longer time.
