According to sources familiar to Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the company restarted the gasoline and diesel producing units on Sunday, March 28, at its JV Deer Park Texas refinery. In fact, the unit was shut on February 15 due to the severe cold weather Texas had during the recent winter storm, Uri.
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Shell restarting activities at Deer Park after winter storm issues
Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted its gasoline- and diesel-producing units in its Deer Park Texas refinery this Sunday, sources familiar to the company said today. Accordingly, the company resumed activities at its 318,000 bpd joint-venture, severely affected by the recent Texas outage due to the winter storm Uri.
In fact, The Deer Park refinery is a 50-50 joint venture between the company and Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Mexico’s national oil company. Accordingly, Shell is the managing partner.
In addition, Reuters commented the 70,000-bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker (FCC) and 67,000-bpd hydrocracker were shut on February 15. Indeed, this was because most of the refinery’s units stopped producing by the severe cold weather.
The importance of resuming
Moreover, Shell reported it shut its 70,000-bpd DU-1 CDU due to a pump seal failure. In fact, the 70,000-bpd DU-1 CDU was shut first and then the 240,000-bpd DU-2 CDU.
Additionally, the CDUs stopped producing because a seal failed on a pump that provides feedstock for other units. In fact, the CDUs are crucial since they break down crude oil into hydrocarbon feedstocks for all other production units at the refinery.
However, at the time, it was unclear if the CDUs would be able to restart quickly.
