Shell said it expects the large crude unit at its 325,700 barrels per day (bpd) Deer Park, Texas, refinery joint venture to be shut for at least a week of repairs following a fire on Thursday, sources familiar with plant operations said. Production in the refinery's gasoline-producing unit and coking unit has been cut back due to the crude unit's outage, the sources said.
There was also a renewed pull to Asia after a Chinese refinery fire cut gasoline output at one of its largest units. Firefighters extinguished the fire that broke out on Thursday in the gasoline producing FCC at state oil major PetroChina's 410,000 bpd plant in northeastern China. More than 600 firefighters extinguished the blaze at the plant's 1.4 million tonnes per annum catalytic cracker just after 9:00 pm (1300 GMT),
In Europe, Shell was restarting the second crude distillation unit and the hydrocracker at its 404,000 bpd Pernis refinery in the Netherlands, according to industry monitor Genscape. There were no trades of eurobob barges during the afternoon window. Elsewhere, 18,000 tonnes traded at $541-$555 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, up from trades at $524-$536 on Friday. Gunvor sold most of the cargoes to Shell, Varo and BP, while NIC and Total also sold to BP.
Varo sold to Total four barges of premium unleaded gasoline at $549 a tonne and one at $550 a tonne fob ARA. This compared with $542 a tonne fob ARA the previous day. The September swap stood at $538 a tonne, up from $530 a tonne.
Copyright Reuters, 2017