PBF Energy has brought back electrical power to its 190,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Chalmette, Louisiana refinery for the first time since Sunday, sources close to the company said to Reuters.
Over the weekend, refining activities at Chalmette may restart; however, the process may go slowly at first, or the refinery may start operating below normal levels, as the electrical power supply is still reduced due to the damage to the transmission lines caused by Ida.
As we have reported previously, Hurricane Ida landed in Louisiana on Sunday as a Category 4 Hurricane. It wreaked havoc on most of the state, home of substantial downstream and upstream activity for the whole nation.
Around 94% of all oil and gas offshore operations went offline, and about 80% remained knocked out as of Wednesday. On Thursday, the Baton Rouge port in Louisiana restarted vessel traffic, and others were slowly returning to normal activity.
Also, the oil major Chevron announced on Thursday that it has committed $3 million in relief funds for the Louisiana region, as it has been the company’s home for more than 80 years. The commitment by the company reflects the tight situation the oil region as a whole endures right now.
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PBF Energy to restart operations at reduced levels
Specifically for the Chalmette refinery, it went offline by a power outage on Sunday. When Hurricane Ida crossed to the New Orleans area, which lost almost all electrical power.
On the other hand, PBF is the second refinery to restart operations after the Ida-related knockouts. As we reported earlier, ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge was the first to come back to production after the Department of Energy released crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
DOE authorized 1,5 million barrels of crude oil from SPR to face the gasoline shortage in the nation and to combat spiking prices.
Finally, PBF Energy’s Chalmette refinery operates around 190,000 barrels of crude oil per day. A company’s spokesperson confirmed that production would restart at reduced levels.
