From Reuters
Lyondell Basell Industries may keep production cut at its 263,776 barrel-per-day (bpd) Houston refinery for a week because of constrained logistics, Gulf Coast market sources said on Friday.
Royal Shell Plc plans to increase production on April 3 at its 275,000 bpd joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery, which was cut because of a shipping shutdown, the sources said.
Lyondell cut production by at least 14 percent following a shutdown of the upper Houston Ship Channel last week following a chemical spill on March 22 from Mitsui & Co’s Intercontinental Terminals Deer Park facility.
The Deer Park refinery, which is a 50-50 venture of Shell and Mexicans national oil company Pemex,, reduced production, shutting a vacuum distillation unit. The adjoining chemical plant also shut an olefins processing unit.
On Wednesday, ships began moving though the area of the channel contaminated by the spilled gasoline blending stocks.
A crude oil tanker reached the Deer Park refinery on Wednesday, staving off a temporary shutdown of the refinery because of a dwindling on-site crude supply.
The Lyondell refinery has been receiving crude supply from a pipeline connecting it to a terminal in Texas City, Texas, at the southern end of the channel, which is not affected by the spill, the sources said.
Production was cut at the Lyondell refinery because barges could not haul away sulfur produced in the making of motor fuels.
Though barges are carting away sulfur, Lyondell wants to be sure it receives an adequate supply of the caustic chemicals needed to prevent the heavy, sour crude it processes from fouling its distillation units, the sources said.
Vacuum distillation units break down residual crude into feedstocks for making motor fuels.
The Intercontinental Terminals Deer Park terminal was the sight of a massive fire last week in which 11 80,000-barrel storage tanks containing gasoline blending stocks burned. The spill was of those chemicals and water and fire-suppressing foam used to put the blaze out.
