BP Plc. is trying to restart a high-octane gasoline production unit at its refinery in Texas City. The company has already filed a request with a state regulatory agency. The restart will help offsetting any supply squeeze resulting after Valero Energy Corp.’s McKee oil refinery in Sunray was shut earlier this month. When the ultracracker unit is fully operational, crude oil throughput at the refinery is expected to come back on 300,000 barrels a day level.
However, the unit has ability to process around 60,000 barrels of crude oil in a day but the constraint is that the Texas City refinery has only one ultracracker. The overall processing capacity of the refinery is around 463,000 barrels a day. In the meanwhile, Valero has stated said that it has purchased fuel and made other arrangements to cover its immediate supply requirements but industry observers have expressed concern. Analysts, soon after the fire occurred, have argued that operations halt of more than about a week could meaningfully affect supply in Colorado and perhaps more broadly.
BP, the London-based energy giant has been slowly started recommissioning the refinery, its largest in the U.S. and the third-largest of all refineries in the country, when a hurricane-prompted shutdown in September 2005 and an extensive safety inspection.
In the meanwhile, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a non-profit group, has accused that the BP Texas City refinery was largest emitter of carcinogenic toxins in the US. The refinery was landed in controversy when a fire broke out un the plant killing 15 lives.
