Wednesday, March 31, 2010

RPT-UPDATE 2-Shell: Motiva Norco LA refinery crude unit back up. Big news for the Gulf!

Shell says fire-damaged crude unit up and running

* Return to service was faster than first anticipated
Reuters) - A fire-damaged crude distillation unit (CDU) at the 236,400 barrel-per-day (bpd) Motiva Enterprises LLC joint-venture refinery in Norco, Louisiana, is back up, a company spokesman said on Monday.

"We can confirm that the DU-5 unit at the Norco refinery has been successfully restarted," spokesman Ted Rolfvondenbaumen said. He said the unit restarted on Friday.

Shell Oil Co (RDSa.L) had said earlier this month that Motiva was close to finishing repairs from a Jan. 22 fire and hoped to restart the unit by the end of March. The previous target had been early April.

A CDU performs the initial refining of oil that comes to a refinery, providing the feedstock for other units that produce finished motor fuels.

A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a requestfor comment.

Motiva is 50-50 joint venture between Saudi Aramco subsidiary Saudi Refining Inc and Shell Oil Co. (Reporting by Kristen Hays, Editing by Rene Pastor)

No comments:

Post a Comment