Overview of Turnarounds & Shutdowns
Turnarounds (TA) involve the planned shutdown of a section of an industrial plant (e.g., refinery, chemical/petrochemical plant, power plant) or of the entire facility to perform major maintenance, overhaul, and repair operations and to inspect, test, and replace process materials and equipment. In addition, turnarounds often provide operators the opportunity to perform debottlenecking, process upgrades, and capital project improvements while the unit or facility is offline. The primary purpose of turnarounds is to conduct the activities necessary to keep the plant running safely, reliably, and as efficiently as possible.
Shutdown
A Shutdown is a general term used in the O&G and Process Industries to describe the period of time in which a plant, unit, or piece of equipment is out of service. Shutdowns usually occur to perform scheduled and opportunity maintenance or inspections; however unplanned, or emergency shutdowns are also possible.
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BlogApril 3, 2020 By Frank-Uwe Hess at T.A. Cook Consultants
COVID-19 is disrupting all industries including asset management. Here are 6 recommendations to help you align your asset management according to new requirements and turn the challenges into opportunities.
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January/February 2020 Inspectioneering JournalBy Zach Burnett at Pro-Surve Technical Services, LLC
Decision trees can be used to help with decisions related to nearly any closed loop mechanical integrity or inspection workflow process. This article focuses on how decision trees can be applied to heat exchanger tubular inspection.
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BlogFebruary 11, 2020 By Abby King at Becht
When paired with the right software, the RBWS process can lead to significant reductions in turnaround work scopes. However, some software tools have distinct advantages over others.
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November/December 2019 Inspectioneering JournalBy Dave Holthaus at Comprehensive Procedure Reviews, LLC (CPR), and Kevin Gaskin at CHS, Inc.
This article helps shine light on some common industry problems that can occur by having inferior UT procedures and practices, while providing several lessons learned through a case study that resulted in nearly $1 million in turnaround repairs.
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BlogOctober 3, 2019 By Arcot (Radha) Radhakrishnan at Becht
Developing a comprehensive turnaround (TA) work scope for process equipment is a critical step for achieving a facility's business goals. Risk Based Work Selection is a proven process for prioritizing and optimizing planned work for an impending TA.
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Partner Content
Our proprietary furnace tube inspection system, FTIS is an ultrasonic inspection technology capable of rapid, automated fired heater coil inspection in refinery fired heaters. The data captured by our furnace tube inspection system is...
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BlogSeptember 17, 2019 By Arcot (Radha) Radhakrishnan at Becht
Risk Based Work Selection (RBWS) is an industry best practice used to help refiners better-manage the safety and reliability of operations for a facility. When properly conducted, RBWS can help refiners optimize major turnaround projects.
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July/August 2019 Inspectioneering JournalBy Stephen J. Thomas at PK Technology
Major maintenance events require proper planning, scheduling, and execution to achieve a successful outcome. An outage assessment process can deliver an effort that is safe, on budget, on schedule, and ensures long term plant equipment reliability.
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March/April 2019 Inspectioneering JournalBy Stephen J. Thomas at PK Technology
Creating a proper work scope and developing and executing an effective work plan are essential for a successful turnaround. However, behind the scenes exists the glue that pulls the entire effort together: logistics.
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November/December 2018 Inspectioneering JournalBy Stephen J. Thomas at PK Technology
An effective outage requires an efficient work effort, driven by a detailed work scope. Of all the different roles and efforts involved in these major events, Inspection plays a significant role in ensuring an outage’s success.
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September/October 2018 Inspectioneering JournalBy James "Chezo" Cesarini, PE at Pro-Surve Technical Services, LLC
The most valuable unit of measure within a turnaround is not money, but time. Successful turnaround planners are now integrating the Detailed Inspection Planner (DIP) within their teams to increase the accuracy of planning and reduce the time...
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March/April 2018 Inspectioneering JournalBy Vipin Nair at GE Compliance and Integrity Management, and Sarah Lukens at GE Digital
This article demonstrates how the use of APM software can help prevent unplanned downtime by quickly identifying potential hidden failures.
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March/April 2018 Inspectioneering JournalBy Cesar Espinoza at PinnacleART, and Sudhakar Mahajanam at PinnacleART
As RBI continues to proliferate across industry, there are still those that are reluctant to transition from a time-based to risk-based inspection approach - especially in the upstream oil & gas business. These 4 benefits might help to lessen the...
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January/February 2018 Inspectioneering JournalBy Mark Rigdon at T.A. Cook Consultants, Inc.
Teams planning and executing turnarounds are obliged to not only stay within budget, but to reduce or eliminate the need to spend the contingency allowance. This article introduces a risk-based approach to help avoid squandering finances.
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September/October 2017 Inspectioneering JournalBy Arun Sreeranganathan at Stress Engineering Services Inc., and John Norris, P.E. at Stress Engineering Services
Fired heaters are among the most critical equipment in refineries and chemical plants. This article provides an overview of what a fired heater tube mechanical integrity program should include.
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September/October 2017 Inspectioneering JournalBy Lee Williamson at T.A. Cook Consultants, Inc.
Detailed operations planning and scheduling is an essential, yet often marginalized, element of an effective turnaround. To increase the likelihood of executing successful turnarounds, facilities should create and update sound operational shutdown...
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July/August 2017 Inspectioneering JournalBy Mark Savage at Sentinel Integrity Solutions, Inc.
3 common repair scenarios include routine maintenance, scope repairs, and major discoveries. An inspector’s ability to properly manage each situation can mean the difference between mechanical integrity success and failure.
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July/August 2016 Inspectioneering JournalBy Guy Bogar at HollyFrontier - Tulsa Refinery
Turnarounds operate at a different pace than routine work. Most plant-based inspection departments have historically struggled with Turnaround document control, such as integrating contractor reports into their routine data management system. Our...
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January/February 2016 Inspectioneering JournalBy Barbara Lasseigne at Envoc
You probably already know that inspection apps for tablets and smart phones exist, and have notions of how these technologies can improve efficiencies in the field and beyond.
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November/December 2003 Inspectioneering JournalBy Kelley Jones at Pro-Inspect Inc.
In the previous articles, we have put all the Pre-Turnaround and actual Turnaround activities in place to get the job safely done. Now we need to find the API Inspectors and have them approved by the client as quickly as possible. I have indicated...
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BlogSeptember 14, 2015 By Bill Davies, P.E. at Engineering & Inspection Services, LLC
A unit turnaround (TAR) provides opportunities for plants to execute capital and maintenance projects, or to make tie-ins during an outage window. This downtime is costly - not just in terms of lost production while the unit is down, but in...
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BlogMarch 2, 2015 By Greg Alvarado at Inspectioneering Journal
There is a lot of great technology currently available to us in the private sector, such as personal cell phones and telecommunication devices, including television, automobile features, e-mail, text messaging, data sharing,...
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November/December 2014 Inspectioneering JournalBy Scott Corey at Sentinel Integrity Solutions Inc.
One of the major challenges inspectors and plant operators face after each turnaround is to ensure that all repair and scope work is and was completed in accordance with the client’s requirements. Sometimes that verification will be to ensure work...
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November/December 2014 Inspectioneering JournalBy Rajesh Bose at BP, and Terry M. Webb at BP
The introduction of PAUT is a challenging effort initially, but can have a very positive impact on your first TAR and become a routine inspection for future TARs. When fully implemented, radiation safety boundaries can be reduced significantly or...
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BlogOctober 27, 2014 By Greg Alvarado at Inspectioneering Journal
Now that the stage has been set (via parts 1 and 2 of this series), let’s see what we can do to improve the efficiencies and effectiveness of the work execution processes through situation awareness. Who knows? Maybe even cut a few days off the...
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BlogSeptember 18, 2014 By Greg Alvarado at Inspectioneering Journal
This blog post is the second in a series about situation awareness (SA). The first part of this series introduced SA (defined as the gathering and utilization of data in real time and using it to improve work processes) and introduced an example of...
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July/August 2014 Inspectioneering JournalBy Scott Corey at Sentinel Integrity Solutions Inc.
In this issue of Inspectioneering Journal, I detail a roadmap for inspection activities during turnaround executions. This roadmap includes the critical elements of turnaround inspections, the keys to optimizing inspection activities, and the...
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March/April 2014 Inspectioneering JournalBy Scott Corey at Sentinel Integrity Solutions Inc.
Periodically, oil refinery and petrochemical plant operating companies conduct complex turnarounds for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to, scheduled maintenance, facility upgrades, and code compliance. In this series of articles...
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Online Article
Leak related problems in bolted assemblies are an ongoing issue for virtually all facilities in the chemical, petrochemical, and refining industries. From leak detection to leak prevention, operators need knowledgeable and experienced technicians to...
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March/April 2013 Inspectioneering JournalBy Thomas Fortinberry at Quest Integrity Group, and James R. Widrig at Quest Integrity
Steam reformers are critical assets to many refining and chemical manufacturing plants and facilities, and it is well known that the reformer is one of the most challenging assets to maintain and operate. Common problems in reformer operations...
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September/October 2012 Inspectioneering JournalBy Abdullah Al-Harbi at Kuwait Oil Company
Since its inception, one of the core businesses of the MS&R (maintenance, safety and reliability) Team for Kuwait Oil Company's NK (North Kuwait) Facilities has included carrying out Preventive Maintenance (PM) activities as directed by the...
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The Site Procedures and Work Processes for Achieving Excellence in Pressure Equipment Integrity and ReliabilityNovember/December 2011 Inspectioneering JournalBy John Reynolds at Intertek
In the first article entitled How to Put It All Together - Guide to Organizing a Successful PEI Program in the current series of articles that I am writing, I provided an overview of the necessary Management Systems (MS) for a successful program to...
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January/February 2003 Inspectioneering JournalBy Kelley Jones at Pro-Inspect Inc.
We have discussed most of the pre-turnaround planning details. We are ready for the next step. The cost for the Turnaround is normally the most important item right behind SAFETY. In many cases the salary, per diem and travel costs have been part of...
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September/October 2002 Inspectioneering JournalBy Kelley Jones at Pro-Inspect Inc.
If you enter a petrochemical facility to work everyday, you realize the security issues. It is very important to have this issue resolved before the inspectors begin to arrive. The first morning of the Turnaround there are usually several thousand...
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March/April 2002 Inspectioneering JournalBy Kelley Jones at Pro-Inspect Inc.
We all agree that safety is the most important item on any Turnaround. It is also one of the most difficult items to sort out prior to the Turnaround. The fact that API Turnaround Inspectors travel all over the country increases the need to be...
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January/February 2002 Inspectioneering JournalBy Kelley Jones at Pro-Inspect Inc.
The second part of this article will continue to provide data regarding tasks to successfully plan for the use of API Inspectors prior to the start of the Turnaround. This article will provide information on what needs to be done to successfully...
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November/December 2001 Inspectioneering JournalBy Kelley Jones at Pro-Inspect Inc.
The use of contractor inspectors for turnarounds has increased in recent years. Mergers with reductions in staff personnel for major oil and chemical companies have fueled this growth. Still, we hear "horror" stories about problems that occur during...
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Utilizing On-stream Inspection Techniques in the Petroleum/Petrochemical Industry in Lieu of Internal and Turnaround InspectionsMay/June 1999 Inspectioneering JournalBy John Reynolds at Intertek, and Mark Bell at Ethos Mechanical Integrity Solutions
This three-part article describes some of the advanced on-stream inspection (OSI) methods available for use in inspection of pressure equipment in the petroleum and petrochemical industry. These methods can be used, under the right circumstances, to...
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May/June 1997 Inspectioneering Journal
A paper entitled, "Turnaround Scope Development Through Reliability, Availability and Maintainability Analysis," prepared by Shailendra K. Gupta and John E. Paisie, both senior reliability engineers with Sun Oil Company, Toledo, OH, USA, was...
PinnacleART builds and runs programs that empower facilities to make value-based decisions on how to manage risk, resulting in safe and profitable operations. We have gathered, organized, and analyzed more mechanical integrity and reliability data than any other company in the world.
PinnacleART builds and runs programs that empower facilities to make value-based decisions on how to manage risk, resulting in safe and profitable operations. We have gathered, organized, and analyzed more mechanical integrity and reliability data than any other company in the world.
Olympus provides an industry-leading portfolio of remote visual inspection, industrial microscopy, ultrasound, phased array, eddy current, phased array, and optical metrology solutions including: ultrasonic flaw detectors and thickness gages, videoscopes, microscopes, advanced NDT systems, and X-ray fluorescence analyzers.
Olympus provides an industry-leading portfolio of remote visual inspection, industrial microscopy, ultrasound, phased array, eddy current, phased array, and optical metrology solutions including: ultrasonic flaw detectors and thickness gages, videoscopes, microscopes, advanced NDT systems, and X-ray fluorescence analyzers.
Quest Integrity Group is a global leader in the development and delivery of asset integrity management and asset reliability solutions for our clients in the refining and chemical, pipeline, syngas and power industries. Our services include furnace tube inspection for the refining and chemical industries, in-line inspection for the pipeline industry, steam reformer tube inspection for the syngas industry, as well as fitness-for-service assessment, remaining life assessment, structural integrity, failure analysis and materials consulting for various industries including the power industry. We specialize in condition assessment for fired heater coils, unpiggable pipelines, steam reformer tubes, storage tanks, gas turbines and other assets.
Quest Integrity Group is a global leader in the development and delivery of asset integrity management and asset reliability solutions for our clients in the refining and chemical, pipeline, syngas and power industries. Our services include furnace tube inspection for the refining and chemical industries, in-line inspection for the pipeline industry, steam reformer tube inspection for the syngas industry, as well as fitness-for-service assessment, remaining life assessment, structural integrity, failure analysis and materials consulting for various industries including the power industry. We specialize in condition assessment for fired heater coils, unpiggable pipelines, steam reformer tubes, storage tanks, gas turbines and other assets.
Pro-Surve Technical with subsidiaries ProSource Radiography and ProForce Industrial are an integrated inspection, NDT, reliability engineering, Data management and project controls service provider assisting clients across CapEx/OpEx budgeted projects processes. We concentrate on solutions provided by the integration of engineering and inspection.
Pro-Surve Technical with subsidiaries ProSource Radiography and ProForce Industrial are an integrated inspection, NDT, reliability engineering, Data management and project controls service provider assisting clients across CapEx/OpEx budgeted projects processes. We concentrate on solutions provided by the integration of engineering and inspection.
TEAM, Inc. is a global leading provider of integrated, digitally-enabled asset performance assurance and optimization solutions. We deploy conventional to highly specialized inspection, condition assessment, maintenance and repair services that result in greater safety, reliability and operational efficiency for our client’s most critical assets.
TEAM, Inc. is a global leading provider of integrated, digitally-enabled asset performance assurance and optimization solutions. We deploy conventional to highly specialized inspection, condition assessment, maintenance and repair services that result in greater safety, reliability and operational efficiency for our client’s most critical assets.
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Partner Content
Our proprietary furnace tube inspection system, FTIS is an ultrasonic inspection technology capable of rapid, automated fired heater coil inspection in refinery fired heaters. The data captured by our furnace tube inspection system is...
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NewsReuters, July 2, 2020
Two people were killed on Thursday in an explosion at Astron Energy’s 100,000 barrel per day refinery in Cape Town.
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NewsReuters, June 23, 2020
Exxon Mobil Corp is restarting the hydrocracker at its 560,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) Baytown, Texas, refinery on Tuesday, said sources familiar with plant operations.
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NewsReuters, May 5, 2020
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has begun a gradual restart of its Ruwais oil refinery complex after a scheduled maintenance shutdown.
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NewsReuters, April 22, 2020
PBF Energy is restarting key units at its Chalmette Refinery as it works to bring the entire facility back online by the end of the week.
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NewsReuters, April 8, 2020
Shell plans to start large-scale maintenance of its Pernis refinery in the Netherlands in mid-April, more than two weeks earlier than previously planned.
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NewsCBC News, March 30, 2020
North Atlantic has decided to idle its Come By Chance Refinery amid growing safety and economic concerns due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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NewsReuters, March 20, 2020
Lyondell Basell Industries said maintenance operations were staffed at its Houston refinery to assure safety and reliability.
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NewsReuters, March 10, 2020
ExxonMobil has restarted the last crude distillation unit that had been shut by a Feb 12 fire at its 502,500 bpd Baton Rouge refinery.
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NewsReuters, March 3, 2020
Shell has restarted a catalytic reformer at its 211,270 bpd refinery in Convent, Louisiana after repairing damage caused by a fire on February 16th.
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NewsReuters, March 2, 2020
ExxonMobil is restarting several units at the company's 502,500 bpd Baton Rouge Refinery following a pipeline fire in early February.
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NewsReuters, February 26, 2020
A portion of Marathon Petroleum Corp’s 363,000 barrel-per-day Carson refinery in California has been shut following a fire, the company said on Wednesday.
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NewsReuters, February 14, 2020
Exxon Mobil Corp began restarting units shut by a Wednesday fire at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery and chemical plant complex on Thursday night.
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NewsReuters, February 13, 2020
Exxon Mobil Corp does not have a timeline for restarting fuel-producing units at its second-largest U.S. refinery following a fire Wednesday that cut production.
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NewsReuters, January 21, 2020
Valero Energy Corp reportedly shut down a diesel hydrotreater on Saturday at the company's 335,000 bpd refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.
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NewsReuters, December 9, 2019
Vietnam’s $9 billion Nghi Son refinery will be fully operational this week following a shutdown in late October for major maintenance work.
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NewsReuters, August 16, 2019
A fire broke out Thursday at Pertamina's 260,000 bpd Balikpapan refinery in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan. No casualties were reported.
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NewsReuters, August 13, 2019
Royal Dutch Shell Plc will begin restarting units at its Norco, Louisiana chemical and refining facilities this week following overhauls.
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NewsReuters, August 7, 2019
Marathon Petroleum Corp may restart a reformer at its 585,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, by the end of the week.
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NewsReuters, August 7, 2019
Valero Energy Corp shut a hydrocracking unit (HCU) and sulfur recovery unit (SRU) at its 335,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery on Monday.
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NewsReuters, July 9, 2019
Venezuela’s Amuay and Cardon refineries are halted following a blackout in the early morning hours, two oil industry sources with knowledge of the issue said on Sunday.
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NewsReuters, June 4, 2019
Cameroon's 42,000 bpd Sonara Refinery was forced to shut down after a storage tank explosion and fire over the weekend.
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NewsInspectioneering Staff, May 22, 2019
United Rentals' charity sporting clays tournament raises $20,000 for local veterans organization Fisher House.
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NewsReuters, May 17, 2019
Venezuela’s 310,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Cardon oil refinery, operated by state-run oil company PDVSA, halted operations on Wednesday due to damage at some of its units.
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