* Marathon preparing to restart crude unit, finishing FCCUrepairs
* Marathon planning to shut smallest FCCU at Galveston Bayby mid-2016
HOUSTON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Marathon Petroleum Corp is preparing to return a 218,500 barrel per day (bpd) crudedistillation unit to production at its 451,000 barrel per day(bpd) Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas after twoweeks of repairs, sources familiar with operations at therefinery said.
The company is also finishing up repairs on the giant120,000 bpd Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit 3, according to thesources. FCCU 3 is supplied with gasoil from Pipestill 3A andwas shut when the crude unit was taken out of production. Analkylation unit was also shut for repairs when the FCCU was onSept. 17.
Separately, Marathon has begun planning to permanently shutthe smallest gasoline-producing unit at the Galveston Bayrefinery by mid-2016, the sources said. (Reporting by Erwin Seba)