Motiva Texas refinery plans coker work this year, CDU overhaul in September 2026, sources say

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Motiva Enterprises plans to perform maintenance on a coker in December of this year and overhaul the large crude distillation unit in September 2026 at its 640,500 barrel-per-day Port Arthur, Texas refinery, said people familiar with plant operations.

A Motiva spokesperson did not reply on Tuesday to a request for comment about planned maintenance at the Port Arthur refinery, which is the largest in the United States.

The sources did not identify which of the two cokers at the refinery will undergo maintenance work before the end of 2025.

The refinery has two cokers. DCU-1 has a capacity of 54,000 bpd and DCU-2 has a capacity of 110,000 bpd.

The work is called a pit stop, meaning it is supposed to be shorter in duration than the full overhaul planned to begin in September on the 350,000-bpd VPS-5 CDU, the sources said.

The work on VPS-5 is planned to last for 60 days and other units which are supplied by VPS-5 will also likely be shut for work, the sources said.

Cokers convert residual crude oil into either feedstocks for motor fuels or petroleum coke, which can be a substitute for coal.

CDUs begin the refining process by breaking crude oil down into feedstocks for all other units at the refinery.

VPS-5 is the largest of the three CDUs at the Motiva refinery.