MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell, the largest oil producer in the US Gulf of Mexico, tentatively plans the first restart of a production unit at its 230,611 barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery for mid-October, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with plant operations.
A Shell spokesman did not reply to a request for comment.
The refinery, located 21 miles (34 km) west of New Orleans, was shut on Aug. 28 ahead of the landfall of Hurricane Ida. The refinery was flooded and damaged as the powerful storm passed over the plant, the sources said.
Shell is working to restart the boiler at the refinery, which is necessary for internal power and to produce steam used in the production process, the sources said. The refinery began attempting to restart the boilers over the weekend.
The Norco refinery was one of nine in Louisiana shut by Hurricane Ida. All have returned to production except for the Shell refinery and Phillips 66's 255,600-bpd Alliance, Louisiana, refinery. Sources familiar with operations at the Alliance plant have said it requires months of repairs.
As MRC informed earlier, Royal Dutch Shell plans to reduce its refining and chemicals portfolio by more than half, it said in July 2020 without giving a precise timeframe. The move is part of the Anglo-Dutch company's plan to shrink its oil and gas business and expand its renewables and power division to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply by 2050.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
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