By Erwin Seba
HOUSTON (Reuters) -TotalEnergies plans to restart the coker at its 238,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery on Thursday, said people familiar with plant operations on Wednesday.
TotalEnergies restarted the 150,000-pd ACU-1 crude distillation unit (CDU) and 60,000-bpd vacuum distillation unit-2 (VDU-2) on Wednesday, the sources said.
A TotalEnergies spokesperson was not immediately available on Wednesday night to comment.
The shutdown of ACU-1 because of a malfunction forced the shutdowns of VDU-2 and the 60,000-bpd coker on Aug. 23, the sources said.
CDUs operate at atmospheric pressure to perform the initial breakdown of crude oil into feedstocks for all other units at the refinery.
Vacuum distillation units break residual crude oil from the CDU at vacuum pressure, increasing the yield from a barrel of oil.
Cokers convert residual crude oil from the CDUs and VDUs into either motor fuel feedstocks or petroleum coke, which can be used as a coal substitute.
The refinery’s 40,000-bpd ACU-2 CDU was also shut on Aug. 23 but for planned work as part of a two-month multi-unit overhaul that includes the 76,000-bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker-2, and 5,000-bpd alkylation unit, the sources said.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Sandra Maler and Leslie Adler)
