Update – Motiva PArthur Coking Refinery looks beyond 600MBD

[basil parmesanParticipant]

UPDATE 1-Motiva Port Arthur looks beyond 600,000 bpd-sources

0:16, Tuesday 14 June 2011

* De-bottlenecking to boost capacity after project
* $5 billion expansion to be complete by Q1 ’12

HOUSTON, June 13, 2011 (Reuters) – Motiva Enterprises LLC is already preparing to expand the capacity of its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery beyond 600,000 barrels per day (bpd), which the plant will reach early next year when a giant construction project is completed, according to refinery sources.
A Motiva spokeswoman declined to comment on the refinery’s long-term plans.
Motiva has also begun tying in units built in the past four years as part of that $5 billion capital project to boost the refinery’s capacity beyond the current 285,000 bpd, the sources said.
The additional increase in capacity is expected to come from improving the efficiency of the expanded refinery, the sources said.
“They’ll likely reach 650,000 with de-bottlenecking,” one of the sources said.
Another source said the expansion could even be larger. “Motiva Port Arthur will grow to between 650,000 and 700,000,” a source said.
One Gulf Coast refinery that completed an expansion in the past two years has already increased its capacity through de-bottlenecking.
In January Marathon Oil Corp announced that its Garyville, Louisiana, refinery had reached 464,000 bpd, an increase of 28,000 bpd in the first year after finishing a capital project that added 209,000 bpd in 2009 to the plant’s refining capacity.
Motiva is currently linking units built during the expansion with the existing refinery. First  to be connected is the refinery’s new power plant. Then a sulfur unit and a coking unit will be tied in. Last to be connected is a new crude distillation unit, the sources said.
In April, Motiva said the expansion will be mechanically complete by the end of 2011 with production beginning in the first quarter of 2012.
Motiva is a 50-50 joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Royal Dutch Shell Plc . Shell manages day-to-day operations.

[Charles RandallParticipant]

Source: Saudi Arabia to be lone crude provider for Texas refinery
June 14, 2010 – Motiva Enterprises’ Port Arthur refinery in Texas will obtain its crude oil solely from Saudi Arabia after the plant completes its expansion in early 2012, a source said. Saudi crude oil currently comprises about 50% of refined fuel from the 285,000 barrel-per-day facility, the source added.

[Charles RandallParticipant]

The fact that the Saudi’s want to be sole supplier to Motiva’s expanded 600MBD refinery in US, lends creditability to fact that it is speculators driving price oil not supply. If price was driven by demand then the Saudi’s wouldn’t want this obligation & would prefer to place some of this type volume into the markets where need is higher.
 
See post under Coking.com’s “Refinery” section  for article “Washington is to Blame for High Prices” article, which talks to this point.  The Saudi’s are fairly tapped out for producing higher volumes & recently when they did produce the higher volumes the tenders were not taken. Placing more crude into captive integrated refining asset is what producers do when the supply is long due to reduced demands – and over long term is best strategy for producer…….something majors like BP, Shell & COP may have to re-learn given thier present course of shedding downstream assets. 

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