[StBernard] UPDATE:La Refinery Upsets Among Gulf Coast Refinery Snags

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Thu Jun 21 22:39:32 EDT 2007


UPDATE:La Refinery Upsets Among Gulf Coast Refinery Snags

June 20, 2007: 05:01 PM EST


(Updates with Murphy, Meraux refinery unit outage.)

HOUSTON -(Dow Jones)- Two Louisiana refineries experienced upsets in the
latest week, a time period marked by unusually low refinery utilization
rates.

Several units at Exxon Mobil Corp.'s (XOM) Baton Rouge oil refinery weren't
operational for two days last week, and Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR) reported that
a key gasoline-producing unit at its Meraux, La. refinery experienced
several upsets.

At the ExxonMobil plant, several units were taken out of service for two
days after a pair of pumps that provide steam failed, a person familiar with
the plant's operations said. The units are now back up.

The Meraux refinery's throughput oscillated between 110,000 barrels a day
and 114 barrels a day, as the refinery struggled with ongoing problems with
a fluid catalytic cracking unit. The outage had a more significant impact on
the refinery's gasoline output than on its crude throughput, though.

While the unit outages at these plants were relatively small, they're a
piece of the larger refinery utilization puzzle. A metric that expresses
operating rates in percentage terms, utilization as reported by the Energy
Information Administration slumped unexpectedly to 87.6% in the week ended
June 15. A series of problems at U.S. refineries has kept utilization below
90%, an important threshold during summer driving season and the
corresponding annual peak in motor fuel demand.

However, it's unclear what exactly contributed to last week's drop, as no
major refinery outages were reported. Refiners are required to report their
operations only to government agencies; news of snags is often culled from
market sources.

The person familiar with the ExxonMobil plant couldn't specify the exact
cutback to crude throughputs during the two days the units were off line.
ExxonMobil didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. At full
volumes, the refinery processes 501,000 barrels a day of crude oil.

The EIA data, which was released Wednesday, showed Gulf Coast refinery crude
inputs falling 6%, by 437,000 barrels a day.

The problems reported last week were minor, like unplanned maintenance at
Valero Energy Corp.'s (VLO) 55,000-barrel-a-day Ardmore, Okla., refinery.

Going into the week, refineries in the region that were running below normal
rates included Valero's refineries in Krotz Springs, La., and Houston;
ExxonMobil's Baytown, Texas, refinery; and BP PLC's (BP) Texas City, Texas
refinery.

Glitches encountered during the course of ongoing maintenance, coupled with
refinery unit outages, may have driven the drop in refinery utilization.

Despite the decline in Gulf Coast refinery utilization, U.S. production of
finished gasoline was 2,000 barrels a day higher than during the previous
week.

-By Jessica Resnick-Ault, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9208;
jessica.resnick- ault at dowjones.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires
06-20-07 1701ET
Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.




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