Mid-April US downstream update

Illinois

ConocoPhillips’s Wood River refinery reported a compressor tripped on April 11. The 380 900 bpd plant flared gases during the incident, according to a filing with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.

Louisiana

Motiva Enterprises’ 255 000 bpd Convent refinery released 500 lbs of sulfur dioxide from three flare stacks on April 12, due to an imbalance in the fuel gas system, according to a filing with the National Response Centre. Motiva is a refining and marketing joint venture of Saudi Refining Inc., a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, and Shell Oil Co., a unit of Royal Dutch Shell.

Oklahoma

Holly Corp. has reported a large flare shooting at its refinery in west Tulsa on April 12. The flare, which only lasted a few seconds, was because the refinery has been testing out new machinery and momentarily experienced a shortage of steam, causing the burn to put out the heavy black smoke.

Pennsylvania

A crude unit at Sunoco’s 335 000 bpd Philadelphia refinery was running at 140,000 bpd on April 12 as a restart of the unit continues. The atmospheric distillation portion of the 175 000 bpd crude unit was restarted earlier this week, while the vacuum distillation unit is scheduled to be in production by April 15. The refinery also continues to restart an alkylation unit, which boosts octane for gasoline, and a reformer, which produces components for gasoline.

Texas

Valero Energy Corp. is increasing a hydrocracker at its Port Arthur refinery to planned rates. A crude unit remains shut for a repair.

Washington

BP’s 225 000 bpd Ferndale refinery shut units on April 8 for a planned 60 day overhaul. Work will concentrate on overhauling the crude vacuum unit and the coking unit to improve efficiency and reliability. Work on two diesel hydrotreaters, the hydrocracker and the isomerisation unit will also commence.

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