Valero West Plant Refinery Turnaround, Norco

Valero Refining Company had owned their St. Charles Louisiana Refinery for less than a year when Performance Contractors was contracted to execute the West Plant Refinery Turnaround.

Upon purchasing the refinery, Valero retained a certain number of refinery employees while bringing in a substantial number of company employees. Although Performance Contractors had worked with Valero at other locations, this was the first project ever attempted by Performance at this refinery location.

The West Plant Turnaround was critical in that numerous upgrades along with equipment replacement had to take place in order to efficiently and profitably operate per Valero standards and expectations. Heading into the work, the unknown factor was significant from not only an equipment standpoint, but from the humanistic perspective as well.

Valero personnel were working with retained refinery personnel who were in turn working with Performance Contractors' personnel, all for the first time. The work was performed less than 40 days prior to a 400,000-manhour turnaround that had to be completed in 28 days.

The West Tank Refinery Turnaround had numerous critical path issues that had to be achieved to complete the work in 28 days. The most critical of these issues were exchanger removal and repair, a 30-in. overhead crude unit line, a 16-in. stainless visbreaker line and coker unit fin fans.

Work of this magnitude cannot be completed safety and effectively without quality manpower. Performance Contractors' peak manpower for the West Plant Refinery Turnaround reached 1,400 craftsmen that were supported and supervised by nearly 100 additional on-site personnel.

A tremendous amount of work with significant exposure to injury was safely executed in 28 days. About 407,000 manhours were safely expended to successfully complete the work and return the West Plant Refinery to Valero per schedule requirements.