SAN ANTONIO, March 25 (Reuters) - A process safety program has improved the reliability of Chevron Corp's 2.2-million barrel per day (bpd) refining system and yielded a gain in throughput equivalent to a new refinery, Jeet Bindra, Chevron's president of global manufacturing said on Wednesday.
"We found if you operate your refinery reliably and safely, you can produce as much as one new greenfield refinery," Bindra said in a speech to the Hart World Refining & Fuels Conference.
Chevron has reduced unplanned operational interruptions by 40 percent in the past two years through regular planned maintenance and preventive maintenance, he said.
Small increases in operational reliability at each refinery from the safety program have equaled a capacity gain between 100,000 and 150,000 bpd, Bindra said.
"Now is not the time to cut corners," he said. "You need to know the condition of your equipment."
Earlier this year, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board called on refiners and chemical plant operators to not reduce maintenance as they cut costs to counter falling refining margins.
Cost-cutting in equipment maintenance was seen as a factor in the deadly March 23, 2005 blast at BP Plc's Texas City, Texas, refinery, the CSB found.
Chevron is also looking at increased operational automation of operations to improve reliability at its refineries, he said.
"We think the technology is available today to react to upset conditions without human interaction," Bindra said.
Operational control has been centralized in the past two decades in refinery command centers with operators monitoring computer screens and reacting to malfunction alarms with gauges and control valves on refinery units as back-ups. (Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Marguerita Choy)