Marathon Galveston Bay Refinery hydrotreater to remain shut until September, sources say

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON, July 3 (Reuters) - A fire-damaged hydrotreater at Marathon Petroleum's MPC.N Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas will remain shut until September, sources familiar with plant operations said on Thursday.

All other units at the 631,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in Texas City, Texas, are operating at or near full capacity following the June 14 fire at the 400 train hydrotreater, which is part of the 64,000-bpd Residual Hydrotreating Unit (RHU), the sources said.

The sources, who declined to be identified because the information is not public, did not quantify the exact production impact.

Marathon spokesperson Jamal Kheiry declined to discuss operations at the refinery in email sent on Thursday night.

The Galveston Bay Refinery is the second-largest in the United States by capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The 400 train is one of three hydrotreaters on the RHU, which uses hydrogen to remove sulfur from feedstocks and refined products made from them to comply with U.S. environmental rules.

The RHU also has a heavy oil unit that uses hydrogen to boost the motor fuels feedstocks that can be squeezed out of residual crude, the thick gunky residue most often used to make asphalt and petroleum coke.

Following the fire, production was cut back on the 144,000-bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker 3 (FCC-3) for several days, the sources said.