Rapid Turnaround Support for a Revenue-Critical Refinery

Due to the prevailing economic situation, a refinery in Northern Europe was the only site for this client that was producing revenue. Consequently, when it came time for a turnaround, there was even more pressure than usual to keep the turnaround short and predictable.

Objective

The site leadership wanted the turnaround executed as quickly as possible in order to minimize the lost production period when the refinery would need to be shut down. They had set an extremely aggressive target for the event.

Becht Approach

Becht was invited to come and assess the readiness of the team to achieve a fast, successful turnaround. Becht was tasked with not only providing a typical readiness review, but also digging more deeply into the plans for oil out, shutdown, and decontamination, to speed up this phase.

Solution

Becht sent a turnaround management advisor, a turnaround execution advisor, and an operations specialist to assess the status of preparations as the turnaround event approached. The three Becht consultants provided a detailed report, with observations and actionable recommendations on where the client could “close gaps” in preparation and modify shutdown processes to save time.

Client Value

At the end of the workshop, several members of the client management team expressed their appreciation:

• “Indeed, a very useful exercise and a good comprehensive report. We appreciate your work and all involved were very encouraged in the way you performed the interviews.”
• “Thank you for a good week. Very valuable for us. We will start the work immediately.”
• “I think you did an excellent job from what I found in your report that I read. In my opinion, spot-on and very good that it came to light.”