Valero Port Arthur refinery restarting small crude unit
HOUSTON - Valero Energy Corp is restarting the small crude distillation unit (CDU) at its 335,000 barrel-per-day Port Arthur, Texas, refinery after repairing a valve on Sunday, sources familiar with plant operations said.
Valero is also raising production on the large CDU at the Port Arthur refinery, which was cut back last week due to Tropical Storm Imelda, the sources said.
Valero placed the 75,000 bpd AVU 147 CDU on circulation as Imelda drenched the refinery on Wednesday and Thursday, flooding nearby roads and preventing the removal of sulfur extracted from motor fuel production, the sources said.
AVU 147 was returned to production on Sunday morning, but was shut to repair a valve on Sunday afternoon, the sources said.
Valero also cut back production on the 268,000 bpd AVU 146 CDU because sulfur could not be removed from the refinery, the sources said. AVU 146 began returning to full production on Sunday.
U.S. environmental rules require sulfur be removed from motor fuels during production.
CDUs do the primary refining of crude oil into hydrocarbon feedstocks for all other production units at the refinery.
Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Tom Brown
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