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Motiva Enterprises restarts Port Arthur refinery, the biggest in the country

Motiva Enterprises refinery

Motiva Enterprises has restarted its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery; particularly its crude oil processing unit, which has a processing capacity of 607,000 barrels per day of oil. Restarting of activities happened this Friday morning according to sources quoted by Reuters.

Firstly, Motiva Enterprises’ Port Arthur refinery is the biggest in the country. After the freezing storm in Texas, the company had to stop production; however, as of this Friday, the 325,000-bpd VPS-5 crude distillation unit (CDU) and 110,000-bpd coker were increasing production.

On this day, Motiva Enterprises also restarted its hydrocracker unit, which has a capacity of 105,000 barrels per day; sources confirmed that also two hydrotreaters came back to processing activities.

In addition, the 32,000-bpd HTU-3 hydrotreater is scheduled to restart later today, Reuters confirmed.

As we have reported previously, the cold weather that hit the Gulf Coast affected many companies. As of February 16, nearly three million barrels of refining capacity were affected by the blizzard.  

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Motiva Enterprises, one of the first to go offline

Precisely, one of the first corporations to halt production was Motiva; then, Valero Energy, ExxonMobil, and Total followed.

Back then, in the Corpus Christi area alone, nearly 807,000 barrels per day of crude went offline; while further 1,2 million bpd were out at the Beaumont, Nederland and Port Arthur regions, as reported by Wood Mackenzie.

However, bye February 23, corporations started to come back, as the freezing wave was passing. Valero Energy Corporation and Marathon Petroleum Corporation, two of the major refinery operators in the U.S. have restarted operations in Louisiana and Texas, respectively on that day.

On the other hand, in the Houston area, one of the most affected by the blizzard, nearly 1,3 million, to maybe 1,8 million bpd of capacity went offline. Consequently, the fewer supply for refined products could boost prices, as it happened with electricity and gas spot prices earlier.

Finally, Motiva Enterprises has restarted production, as the cold weather fades away. However, the energy crisis that it provoked it’s far from over. FERC as well as the government of Texas are investigating whether the boost on prices was artificial.

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