SUMMARY:

DJ Refinery Status:Benzene Leak Detected At Chevron's Pascagoula, Mississippi, Refinery

The following table lists unplanned and planned production outages at U.S. refineries as reported by Dow Jones Newswire's.

ORIGINAL TEXT:

DJN Material

DJ Refinery Status:Benzene Leak Detected at Chevron's Pascagoula, Mississippi Refinery

The following table lists unplanned and planned production outages at U.S. refineries as reported by Dow Jones Newswire's. The information is compiled from both official and unofficial refining sources and doesn't purport to be a comprehensive list.

Benzene was leaking from a heat exchanger on Sept. 14, at Chevron Corp's 330,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, according to the U.S. National Response Center. No indication of affected units was given.

All units at Phillips 66 247,000 barrel-a-day Alliance refinery in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, are expected to be back in service by Sept. 22, according to a Phillips website. Refinery operations were shut on Aug. 28, in advance of approaching hurricane, Isaac.

A heat exchanger hydrogen leak took place on Sept. 14, at Chevron's 347,000 barrel-a-day Richmond, Calif., refinery, according to traders and marketers doing business with the company. In addition, the crude unit is still down after a major fire forced it to be shut the evening of Aug. 6. Some estimates indicate it will be another four months before the crude unit is brought back into service.

A power interruption at Delek's 58,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Tyler, Texas, caused excessive emission to be released at the facility on Sept. 15 and 16, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Record heat and a power outage on Sept 15, forced the shutdown of Phillips 66 140,000 barrel-a-day combined Wilmington and Carson, Calif., refineries. Excessive emissions, causing smoke and flaring, took place and much of the refinery is still down, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. A majority of the refining units are expected to be back on line by the end of the week.

A coking unit at Petrochemical's & Refining USA's 232,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, wasn't operating properly on Sept. 14 and 15, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. There was a problem with wet compressor valves and a flaring event ensued.

Fluid Catalytic cracking units at WRB Refining LLC's 146,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Borger, Texas, will be shut from Sept. 15 to Sept. 29, for maintenance, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

A coker unit at HollyFrontier's 139,000 barrel-a-day refinery in El Dorado, Kansas is undergoing maintenance until further notice, according to traders doing business with the company. No significant impact to production is expected.

Sunooco Inc., shut down a so-called cumene unit and restarted an alkylation unit at it's 336,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 6, according to local pollution regulators.

A flaring even took place on Sept. 14, at ExxonMobil's 345,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Beaumont, Texas, according to marketers and traders doing business with the refinery.

A 30 minute flaring event took place at ExxonMobil's 155,000 barrel-a-day Torrance, Calif., refinery the morning of Sept. 13, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The event was unplanned and it wasn't know which units were affected.

A crude unit was upset at ExxonMobil's 560,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Baytown, Texas, the morning of Sept. 13, and flaring was evident for six hours, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental quality. Crude runs were temporarily reduced while the fractionation tower was returned to service. A flexicoker at the refinery was taken out of service on sept.11, due to a heat exchanger tube leak.

Equipment within a unit called 812 was shutdown beginning mid-afternoon on Sept. 12, at Total PetroChemicals & Refining USA's 232,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The unit was restarted and the flaring incident lasted for just under two hours.

The problem ridden 67,000 barrel-a-day Big Spring, Texas, refinery owned and operated by Alon USA was running it's fluid catalytic cracker at reduced rates on Sept. 13, as a result of necessary maintenance work on a wet gas compressor, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Flaring was evident for five hours during the morning.

A hydrotreater at BP's 226,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Cherry Point, Washington, was upset on Sept. 13, according to traders doing business with the company. It wasn't known how long the problem would last.

A coker unit at Marathon Petroleum Corp's 489,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Garyville, Louisiana was upset the afternoon of Sept. 11, according to the U.S. National Response Center. The nature of the equipment failure involved a leaky flange, the NRC said

A flexicoker was taken out of service on Sept. 11, at ExxonMobil's 560,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Baytown, Texas, due to a heat exchanger tube leak, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The event caused the release of excessive emissions and the event is expected to last until Sept. 16.

A flaring event took place the afternoon of Sept 11, at the 239,000 barrel-a-day refinery owned and operated by ExxonMobil in Joliet, Illinois, due to an undefined equipment failure, according to traders doing business with the company

A brief flaring event took place on Sept. 10, at the 284,000 barrel-a-day refinery owned and operated by Flint hills Resources in Corpus Christi, Texas, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The flaring was in conjunction with a scheduled coker unit outage and the cause is being investigated.

An ultracracker at BP's 407,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Texas City, Texas, was put into restart mode on Sept 9, according to traders doing business with the company. BP confirmed the restart.

An unplanned flaring event took place on Sept. 10, at Phillips 66 120,000 barrel-a-day Rodeo, Calif., refinery, according to the California Emergency Management Agency. It wasn't know which units were affected.

A planned flaring event will take place at BP's 266,000 barrel-a-day Carson, Calif., refinery beginning Sept. 10 through Sept. 14, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. It wasn't known which refining units would be affected and BP was unavailable for comment.

A fluid catalytic cracker at Pasadena Refining Systems, Inc. 100,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Pasadena, Texas, was upset the evening of Sept. 6, and a flaring even occurred, according to the Texas Commission On Environmental Quality. The unit has been brought back to normal operations, according to the Commission.

A fluid catalytic cracker and alkylation unit at Sunoco's 335,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Philadelphia, PA, experienced mechanical problems on Sept. 4, and both units were taken out of service, according to traders doing business with the company. No timetable was given for restarting the units.

Delta Airlines (DAL) said Sept. 6 that the 185,000 barrel-a-day Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania will be operational by the end of September.

BP PLC (BP) restarted the ultracker at its 400,780 barrel-a-day refinery in Texas City, according to a government filing Sept. 6. The company did not say when the unit went out. A company spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Phillips 66 (PSX) said Sept. 6 that power was restored to the Alliance Refinery in Belle Chasse, La. and workers are in the process of restarting the 247,000 barrel-a-day is in facility following Hurricane Isaac. The company said it expects the refinery "will be operating by mid-month."

Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) Chief Executive Bill Klesse said work on a diesel-making unit at the company's St. Charles refinery in Norco, La., is now likely to be completed in early 2013, rather than later this year as the company had previously estimated, in part due to Hurricane Isaac. The unit is still on track to be operational in the second quarter of 2013.

Both of the refineries Valero Energy Corp (VLO) had shut down ahead of Isaac are in the process of restarting, company spokesman Bill Day said. Sept. 5. He said "most production units" are back in operation at the 205,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Norco and the 125,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Meraux, though some are still being brought back. The crude unit at the Meraux facility was shut for repairs prior to the storm, and has not been restarted, he said.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and Motiva Enterprises said Sept. 5 that their 235,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Convent, La. and their 233,500 barrel-a-day refinery in Norco., La. are restarting after Isaac and operating at reduced or near-normal rates.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) said Tuesday that its refinery in Chalmette, La., is in the process of restarting after being temporarily shut in advance of Hurricane Isaac. The 192,500 barrel-a-day refinery is a joint venture between Exxon and Petroleos de Venezuela. Exxon also said it is working to bring production back to normal levels at its 502,500 barrel-a-day refinery in Baton Rouge. The company began running the refinery at reduced rates as part of its preparation for the storm.

Marathon Petroleum said its 464,000 barrel-a-day Garyville Refinery has returned to normal operations following Hurricane Isaac.

Tesoro Corp's (TSO) Wilmington, Calif. refinery experienced a brief power outage but is returning to normal operations, a spokesman said Sept. 1. The 103,800 barrel-a-day refinery flared sulfur dioxide due to the outage.

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