Shell Convent refinery restarts gasoline, alky units

HOUSTON: Royal Dutch Shell Plc on Wednesday was restarting the gasoline-producing and alkylation units at its 227,586-barrel-per-day (bpd) Convent, Louisiana, refinery after a Tuesday night malfunction, said sources familiar with plant operations.

The 92,000-bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) malfunctioned on Tuesday night, tripping that unit and the 16,500-bpd alkylation unit out of production, the sources said.

Energy industry intelligence service Genscape said the flaring began on Tuesday night with the shutdown of the FCCU.

The alkylation unit converts refining by-products into octane boosting components of gasoline.