Exxon Mobil Corp.’s 369,024 barrel-per-day (bpd) Beaumont, Texas, refinery continued restarting the large crude distillation unit (CDU) and coker on Wednesday, said sources familiar with plant operations to Reuters.
Exxon began restarting the 240,000-bpd Crude B CDU and 45,000-bpd coker on Tuesday, the sources said. The entire refinery was shut on Aug. 25 because of the threat from Hurricane Laura.
“Exxon Mobil continues to make progress restarting its Beaumont refinery,” said Exxon spokesman Jeremy Eikenberry. “We continue to conduct site assessments. We are communicating with federal, state and local emergency planning officials about our response to the impacts of the storm.”
Exxon plans to restart the refinery by sometime on Friday, the sources said.
Exxon restarted the 110,000-bpd Crude A CDU on Monday. The two CDUs break down crude oil into hydrocarbon feedstocks for all other production units.
The refinery is also restarting the 120,000-bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker (FCC) and 80,000-bpd reformer.
On Monday, Exxon also restarted the 65,000-bpd hydrocracker, 75,000-bpd reformer and 40,000 bpd hydrotreater.
Reporting by Erwin Seba in Houston; Editing by Matthew Lewis
