NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc plans to maintain control of two refineries that canrun more domestic crude, leaving a plant that runs massivevolumes of Saudi Arabian oil to Saudi Aramco as the companiesend their Motiva Enterprises joint venture.
Refineries in Port Arthur, Texas, and Convent, Louisiana,processed large volumes of crude prior to 2011, but had beengrowing apart for several years before the companies announcedplans to split ownership of the assets on Wednesday.
As shale crude became more widely available, Convent'sintake of Saudi oil has ebbed, dropping to just 256,000 barrelsin June, before rebounding to 2.6 million barrels in December,the latest month for which data is available.
Port Arthur became a workhorse for Saudi crude processingafter a major expansion, bringing in as much as 11 millionbarrels from the Kingdom in a single month. The refinery ran 8.7million barrels of Saudi crude in December, the latest month forwhich data is available.
* Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/1WtTo8E (Reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault; Editing by Sandra Maler)
