Engen Refinery to undergo maintenance: Will this affect fuel delivery?

Cape Town - Engen Refinery, South Africa’s second largest oil refinery, is set to undergo planned maintenance. Starting from September 19, this scheduled activity forms part of the refinery’s ongoing maintenance programme and will run for 21 days.

Jehan Zaib, general manager of the Engen Refinery, said that routine planned maintenance is essential for the safe and reliable operation of the facility.  

Zaib said: “The planned outage will primarily focus on essential plant maintenance and inspection activities as well as process regeneration activities."

Additional resources over this period will see the creation of approximately 650 temporary positions for skilled workers, who have largely been sourced from the local community.

Minimum disruption

Zaib continued: “To ensure that we complete this planned maintenance outage on time, there will be increased traffic as suppliers and contractors service the refinery. We will however do our utmost to keep any disruption to a minimum and have detailed planning schedules to mitigate any potential access and capacity issues.

“The safety of our employees and the neighbouring community is of the highest priority to Engen and we want to thank our neighbours in advance for their understanding during this period,” he adds.  

READ: Oil strength, Gordhan jitters put the brakes on SA fuel drop

Engen stressed its world-class safety policies and procedures that are in place to ensure the safety of its staff.

Wheels24 asked Engen SA whether the scheduled maintenance will affect service delivery and the petroleum company responded by saying that systems have been put in place to manage the next 21 days.

Engen said: "There will be no impact on our ability to serve our customers. The shutdown is part of a national refinery scheduled maintenance plan. Our stocks have been managed accordingly and service delivery will not be affected."