MOSCOW (MRC) -- ExxonMobil Corp plans to shut the small gasoline-producing unit at its 560,500 barrels-per-day (bpd) Baytown, Texas, refinery early this week because of low demand due to efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, reported Reuters.
The shutdown of the 90,000 bpd gasoline-producng fluidic catalytic cracker 2 (FCC 2) could have happened as early as this weekend, sources said.
Exxon spokesman Jeremy Eikenberry said operations were continuing at the Baytown refinery, but declined to discuss the status of specific units.
The shutdown would mean all three of Exxon’s US Gulf Coast refineries have reduced production.
Crude oil intake was reduced by 60,000 bpd at the company’s 502,500 bpd Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery, sources familiar with operations at that plant told Reuters.
Exxon’s 369,024 barrel-per-day Beaumont, Texas, refinery began a planned overhaul with the shutdown of the 240,000 bpd crude distillation unit (CDU) last Monday.
As MRC informed earlier, ExxonMobil Corp cut production at its 502,500 barrel-per-day Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery as poor demand has pushed up inventories and filled storage tanks. The number of contract workers at the Baton Rouge refinery was cut by 1,800 people on Friday as Exxon begun informing service companies of planned spending cuts. The refinery’s production was cut to about 440,000 bpd on Saturday, the sources said.
We also remind that, in September 2019, ExxonMobil announced plans to spend GBP140 million over the next two years in an additional investment program at its Fife ethylene plant, which has a capacity of more than 800,000 t/y.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC