HOUSTON: The heavy oil hydrocracking unit (HCU) at Royal Dutch Shell Plc's 235,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Convent, Louisiana, refinery remained shut due to new piping problems, sources familiar with plant operations said on Monday.
Shell had resumed the restart of the 45,000-bpd HCU, called the H-Oil Unit, late last week following a halt to allow the repair pinhole leaks discovered in the piping on the unit.
No time frame has been set for resuming the restart, the sources said on Monday.
Shell became sole owner of the Convent refinery on May 1 when it and Saudi Aramco divided the assets of their Motiva Enterprises LLC joint venture, which had owned the refinery.
Refinery officials decided on April 26 to shelve plans to keep the H-Oil Unit shut for three months to repair cracks in piping welds, sources told Reuters. The officials concluded X-rays photographs of the unit had been misread.
The H-Oil unit, which produces motor fuels, primarily diesel, from residual crude oil, has not run at full capacity since an Aug. 11, 2016 fire severely damaged the unit.
The unit has been running at half capacity since late November 2016, following repairs. It was shut on March 3, 2017 ahead of a planned restart at full capacity. A fire broke out at the unit on March 18, 2017, requiring three weeks of repairs.
As those repairs neared completion in early April of this year, officials decided to delay the unit's restart for repairs of piping in the main production sections that were expected to last into July.
The Convent refinery's H-Oil unit is unique because it converts residual crude under high heat and pressure in the presence of hydrogen and a catalyst into motor fuel.
Most refineries send residual crude to a coking unit to produce motor fuel feedstock and make petroleum coke, a coal substitute.
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