Market Conditions Keep Total's Flandres Refinery Offline

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Total SA's (NYSE:TOT) (Paris, France) 137,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Flandres Refinery, located in France's Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, remains offline until refining market conditions improve.

On September 12, the refinery suspended activities as a consequence of the declining refining market. A maintenance turnaround in March that involves all production units was initially scheduled to last 30 days. However, Total announced from the very beginning of the shutdown that the refinery would resume activities only when market conditions became favourable.

Company officials are analyzing different scenarios regarding the future of the refinery. Possible actions include the continuation of the operations at normal rates, selling the refinery, converting of the refinery into a warehouse, and preparing equipment for an extensive standby period before restarting.

Any decision will be made after the planned maintenance turnaround, scheduled to start March 15. At this time, units are scheduled to be offline for a period of 45 days. For more details, see November 3, 2009, article - Total Planning Maintenance Turnaround in Flandres Refinery.

Separately, on August 5, Total's 337,000-BBL/d Gonfreville refinery was forced to shut down the facility's 145,000-BBL/d crude distillation unit for the same reasons. For more details, see August 14, 2009, article - Unplanned Shutdown Scheduled for Total's Gonfreville Refinery.

Total is one of the four largest oil, natural gas, and specialty chemicals companies in the world. Total operates 11 refineries across Western Europe, including six refineries in France: the Gonfreville Refinery in Haut-Normandie, the Flandres Refinery, the 160,000-BBL/d Grandpuits Refinery in Ile-de-France, the 140,000-BBL/d Provence Refinery, the 117,000-BBL/d Feyzin Refinery in Rhône-Alpes, and the 230,000-BBL/d Donges Refinery in La Loire.

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