This adaptation plan was vital for the refinery in order to ‘ improve its efficiency and enhance its competitiveness by reducing its costs and cash breakeven .’

Quoted in the press release , the refinery ’ s general manager Jacques Beuckelaers said : “ Total has developed a viable plan for the future of the Lindsey Oil Refinery .”

Over the past two years the refinery ’ s production capacity and organisation has been streamlined ‘ to become a smaller but a higher converting and profitable refinery .’

“ We may be smaller now but we ’ re stronger and better ,” Jacques told Fuel Oil News editor Jane Hughes on a recent visit to

see how the refinery is shaping up two years on .

“ We ’ re investing to stay – Total is fully committed to the UK and to this refinery .”

Making the necessary changes “ In 2016 employees and contractors worked really hard during what was a very busy year with some tough targets ,” explained Jacques .

“ In a shrinking market it was essential to put our money into better products and with fuel oil usage continuing to drop , we needed to significantly reduce its production whilst increasing other products .

To reduce crude capacity

to 110,000 barrels per day , the crude distillation unit ( CDU1 ) and the stage 1 units were stopped on 22nd September 2016 . Meanwhile the number 2 crude distillation unit underwent a major inspection and turnaround which included a project to improve the furnace at the heart of the unit .

“ This was a very successful turnaround ,” said Andrew Quenet who , having spent 16 years in refinery operations before moving into sales , is very well-acquainted with the refinery ’ s infrastructure .

“ It was important that this turnaround , which was safely delivered on time and on budget , did not impact on inland sales ,” added Andrew .

“ Whilst the reconversion was massive , we ensured its impact was invisible to customers by having prepared feedstocks and extra product scheduled to ensure there were no disruptions for customers . And as a bonus , we now have the best performing furnace in the Total group !”

Inevitably , the restructure of the Total Lindsey Oil Refinery ( TLOR ) involved staff reductions . It was necessary to reduce the refinery ’ s head count from 580 to 400 . All of the redundancies were achieved on a voluntary basis .

“ Doing this without a social tension was not easy but it had to be done to ensure the refinery could become more competitive and more profitable in the long

12 Fuel Oil News | April 2017