Maintenance shutdown at the Preem refinery

Together with other suppliers, several of the Granitor companies have implemented one of the largest industrial shutdowns in the country. A maintenance shutdown requires careful planning and streamlining, all under severe time pressure because everything happens at once. The safety requirements are extremely high and there is no room for unexpected occurrences.

-In complex projects such as this, we always have to predict and plan for the unexpected. We have to spot problems and obstacles before they occur, and plan solutions to them so that we can deliver our solution quickly. The turnaround in Lysekil is one of the most successfully implemented shutdowns, considering both quality, safety and cooperation. During this project, the staffing was increased slightly, compared to before. Preem’s organization and suppliers manned the project with additional people, which have shown good results, says Conny Andersson, Project Leader at Granitor Mechanical.

Everything is connected – We are involved throughout the whole project, before, during and after.

Due to government requirements, plants have to be shut down every six years for turnarounds, which means a complete production shutdown, as well as shutdowns at shorter intervals for parts of the plant. The maintenance shutdowns require careful planning, since the plant is shut down part by part. Among other things, the machines, furnaces and vessels must be quality assured, sometimes replaced and maintained to retain their high efficiency and safety. For Preem, this shutdown has been planned for several years, for Granitor the planning started about six months before the shutdown. Granitor had several companies working with the shutdown parallelly. Companies active during this shutdown were Granitor Electro, Granitor Mechanical, Granitor Systems, Granitor Aenigma and Alucrom, which together have contributed with their maintenance services.

Together we can make a positive difference.

For us at Granitor, safety comes first. A turnaround involves long days and working under time pressure, and we have delivered around 300 observations to the client’s system for incidents, accidents and thousands of daily risk assessments.

- It is a great commitment for us at Granitor, and it requires good planning, experience and expertise in many areas. With this project, we could finally show our entire skillset and deliver a turnkey solution to the client. Our long-term and good collaboration with Preem is a key to success in the project, says Ida Hegge, HSEQ Manager at Granitor.