Late April: US and Canada downstream news

Alberta

A 24 hour flaring period was reported at the Scotford refinery. This was due to a unit restart at the Royal Dutch Shell Plc owned facility.

ConocoPhillips

ConocoPhillips have announced that the refining and chemical side will split off in to a new company, Phillips 66. The new company will officially begin trading on Tuesday 1^st May.

Illinois

Startup of an unidentified unit at the ExxonMobil Joliet refinery was completed on Friday 27^th April after a filing was made with the Illinois Pollution Regulators. The filing was made as the restart resulted in flaring of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.

New Jersey

Hess Corp will pay US$ 850 00 in civil penalties and spend over US$ 45 million on pollution controls at the Port Reading refinery. The two are being executed to resolve Clean Air Act violations at the facility. This is the 31^st agreement of its kind with refineries in the US.

Philadelphia

Carlyle Group is in talks with Sunoco Inc. to buy the company’s Philadelphia refinery. This has caused reports to appear discussing that private equity could be set to rebound. Carlyle is looking to pay cash for the majority stake in the plant.

Texas

A filing with the Texas Polution Regulators was made by Port Arthur refinery due to a malfunction in the hydrocracking unit. Valero Energy Corp own the 292 000 bpd plant and also reported flaring at the facility the night before to the US National Response Center.

After a power failure at the Lyondell Bassell Houston refinery, operations were quickly resumed. The failure affected the coking unit at the 280 390 bpd facility.

On 27^th April the Big Spring, refinery reported a malfunction in the crude distillation unit. Alon, the plant owner/operators had to make a filing Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as the malfunction resulted in flaring.  

Edited from various sources by Claira Lloyd

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/30042012/end_april_us_and_canada/