Louisiana refineries begin coming back to life after Ida
At least three refineries in Louisiana were starting on Friday to get some power supplies that would enable them to consider restarting operations five days after Hurricane Ida made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Nine refineries were knocked offline by Ida's winds and power losses. The state's largest utility, Entergy Corp, has restored power to about a quarter of affected customers, it said.
Three crude oil refineries near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, have begun restarts since being idled by Hurricane Ida, the U.S. Department of Energy said Friday.
The largest, Exxon Mobil Corp’s 520,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Baton Rouge complex, began preparations earlier and on Thursday said it was restarting oil processing.
The DOE directed 1.5 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve be provided to Exxon to help alleviate regional fuel shortages caused by Hurricane Ida.
Two other refineries, Placid Refining's 75,000-bpd Port Allen refinery and Delek US Holdings' (DK.N) 80,000-bpd plant in Krotz Springs, could also see power restored soon under Entergy's plan.
Neither Placid nor Delek replied to requests for comment on Friday.
PBF Energy said it was receiving limited power at its 190,000-bpd Chalmette refinery but could not predict when operations could fully resume. A restart could begin over the weekend, people familiar with the matter said. read more
Power was returning to Marathon Petroleum's 578,000-bpd Garyville refinery and Valero Energy Corp’s 215,000 bpd St. Charles refinery in Norco, GasBuddy.com analyst Patrick De Haan said.
A Marathon spokesman said he did not have information immediately available about the refinery.
Valero did not reply to a request for comment.
Phillips 66's Alliance refinery on the Louisiana coast was still being evaluated for damages. Any restart would depend on those assessments and the availability of electricity, it said.
Comments