Refineries, Chemical Plants Recovering in Wake of Arctic Blast

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Several U.S. petroleum refineries and chemical plants were in various stages of recovery this week or remained shut down following outages caused by last week's arctic blast.

Winter Storm Elliott, so dubbed by The Weather Channel, caused temperatures to plummet late last week, causing many refiners and chemical plant operators to shut down their facilities, particularly in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. As much as 1.5 million barrels per day (BBL/d) of the Gulf Coast's refining capacity was shut down amid frigid temperatures as of December 23, according to Reuters.

Industrial Info has tracked more than 100 refining and chemical unit unplanned outages caused by the storm.

Click on the image at right for a map showing unplanned outages caused by the storm.

Listed below is the status of some of the facilities that were impacted by the low temperatures.

Refineries
TotalEnergies' 175,000-BBL/d Port Arthur, Texas, refinery was shut down on December 23 due to severe weather conditions. Industrial Info continues to monitor its operational status and will provide an update when additional information becomes available.

On Tuesday, Valero initiated the restart of several units at its 325,000-BBL/d Port Arthur refinery after it was shut down on December 23.

On December 24, Valero began the restart process at its 95,000-BBL/d Three Rivers, Texas, refinery.

Motiva initially reduced output by 20% at its 600,000-BBL/d Port Arthur refinery and then shut down nine units on December 24. Motiva began start-up procedures on December 25.

Phillips 66 restarted its 259,000-BBL/d Sweeny, Texas, refinery on December 25.

ExxonMobil restarted the 120,000-BBL/d fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU), 40,000-BBL/d FCCU Gasoline HT and associated units at its 350,000-BBL/d Beaumont, Texas, refinery on December 25.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, Suncor's Plant 2 (East) at its 98,000-BBL/d Denver Refinery remained offline. On December 27, Suncor was in the process of restarting the plant when a fire occurred.

Chemical Plants
Braskem America Incorporated has begun restart activities at its 780 million-pound-per-year (lb/yr) polypropylene (bulk) unit, 992 million-lb/yr Polypropylene 2 (Delta) unit and other processing units at its La Porte, Texas plant. The plant was shut down in preparation for Winter Storm Elliott.

INEOS Styrolution America's styrene monomer plant in Pasadena, Texas, which was shut down in preparation for last week's freezing weather, was expected to restart next week. The plant had issues getting enough water.

Arkema's acrylics plant in Pasadena remained offline as of Tuesday and was expected to restart this coming weekend.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).