MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc restarted a catalytic reformer at its 211,270 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Convent, Louisiana on Monday after completing repairs, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.
Shell spokesman Ray Fisher said, "Startup procedures are underway at Shell Convent for an unspecified process unit."
The 40,000-bpd reformer was shut on Feb. 16 by a fire that broke out from a flange, the sources said.
The refinery is also performing a planned overhaul on the 130,000-bpd crude distillation unit at the refinery.
The reformer converts refining byproducts into octane-boosting components added to unfinished gasoline.
We also remind that, as MRC informed previously, operations were stable on 13 September 2019 at Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s 340,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) joint-venture refinery in Deer Park, Texas, after the upper Houston Ship Channel was closed by protesters from Greenpeace USA. The Deer Park refinery is a 50-50 joint-venture between Shell and Mexico’s national oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex). Shell is the managing partner of the joint-venture. Shell has three crackers at Deer Park site with a combined ethylene capacity of 1,67 mln per year and petrochemical plants.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
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