Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted the crude distillation unit (CDU), coker and gasoline-producing cat cracker by Monday at its 225,300 barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery, said sources familiar with plant operations, as reported by Reuters.
Shell is restarting the hydrocracker, while the reformer and naphtha hydrotreater will remain shut for previously planned work, the sources said. The coker is scheduled to undergo planned work beginning next week but is expected to remain in operation.
The 240,000-bpd CDU malfunctioned on Thursday night and shut down early on Friday, forcing the shutdown of the 112,000-bpd residual catalytic cracker, 25,000-bpd coker, 40,000-bpd hydrocracker, 40,000-bpd reformer and 40,000-bpd naphtha hydrotreater, according to the sources.
After correcting the CDU malfunction, Shell restarted the crude unit, which began sending hydrocarbon feedstock to the other units allowing them to restart, the sources said.
Reporting by Erwin Seba, editing by Louise Heavens and Steve Orlofsky
