Top 4 Causes of Turnaround Delays

Turnaround failures are an unfortunate fact of life for many refineries, and no one wants to experience one. But what are the top causes of turnaround delays and how do you avoid them?

CruzAlta collects detailed information on Turnaround Shutdown performance and the top 4 causes of shutdown delays are (in rank order):

1. Mechanical Readiness
2. Effluent System
3. Operations Availability
4. Underestimated Duration

The most common cause of turnaround delays is mechanical readiness.

Mechanical readiness for a turnaround includes having all the mechanical equipment and facilities needed for shutdown ready to go when needed. For example: hoses are laid out, temporary piping is installed and bolted up, temporary coolers/condenser/knockout pots are installed and connected, required temporary pumps are installed and ready to run, and (the most common deficiency) the temporary facilities are connected to the process piping, except where spools need to be dropped out for the connection to be made.

The best practice for making sure all this work is completed prior to feed out is to detail plan all the installation of these facilities and load them into the TA Schedule file as pre-TA tasks.

Typically, this pre-TA scope is targeted to be completed 1-3 weeks prior to feed out and assigned to a dedicated mechanical crew to execute.

At CruzAlta, we want to help our clients avoid these costly turnaround delays. It starts with a deep understanding of a client’s unique pain points, and we then apply a subset of our proven methodologies to address the specific site needs. We want our clients to think differently and confidently while experiencing operational excellence.