Valero to Sell Refinery in Aruba

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--According to Bill Klesse, CEO of Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO) (San Antonio, Texas), the company will sell its San Nicolas refinery in Aruba by mid-2008 in order to focus on improvements to plants that can process cheaper oil. The buyer's name has not been disclosed, but the sale has been delayed because of the fire in the vacuum 3 (V3) unit at the end of January.

Valero shut down production at the refinery, which has 21 processing units, after a fire broke out in the V3's middle conversion area, which has a 160,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) processing capacity. All of the units were subsequently shut down. View related, February 1, 2008, article - Fire in Vacuum Unit Halts Valero's Aruba Refinery. The refinery, which mainly produces kerosene, gas oil, diesel fuel and jet fuel, has a maximum processing capacity of 275,000 BBL/d; however, it has been producing 230,000 BBL/d.

On February 2, 2008, the C7, D2, D1, hydrogen and amine units, and HD2, HD3, delayed coker 1 and 2 were restarted. Partial furnace maintenance is still being performed in C7; therefore, the unit is de-rated, and the refinery is processing 130,000 BBL/d. This unit will process at lower rates until late April 2008. C5 and C6 are running at maximum capacity to compensate for C7.

Repairs in V3 have been progressing without problems, and the unit is expected to be restarted by the third week of April. D3, which remains offline because of a lack of feed, will restart after V3 is restarted. View related March 21, 2008, article - Only Two Units Remain Offline at Valero's Refinery in Aruba after Fire.

View Plant Profile - 1020148

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.