HOUSTON, June 30 (Reuters) - By the end of 2021, Royal Dutch
Shell Plc will have just one operating crude oil
refinery in the United States: The 227,400 barrel-per-day (bpd)
refinery in Norco, Louisiana.
Sources familiar with Shell’s plans say the company will
likely hang on to the Norco refinery because of its role
supplying the company’s chemical plants.
“Norco is integrated with them,” one of the sources said of
the refinery, 25 miles (40 km) west of New Orleans.
In addition to producing gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, the
Norco refinery produces ethylene and propylene that go to the
adjoining Shell Norco chemical plant and to the nearby Shell
Geismar, Louisiana, plant.
A Shell spokesman did not reply to a request for comment.
In May, Shell announced the sales of its Anacortes,
Washington, refinery as well as the controlling interest in the
joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery. The company also sold
its chemical refinery in Mobile, Alabama.
All three sales are to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Shell’s shift out of refining to emphasize petrochemical
production anticipates a fall in demand for fuels refined from
crude oil as motor vehicles shift away from carbon-intensive
fuels.
As early as 2014, Shell identified Norco’s
gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker (FCC) as the more
profitable at two Louisiana refineries then operated by the
Motiva partnership between Shell and Saudi Aramco.
The partnership split in 2017 with Shell keeping the Norco
and Convent refineries in Louisiana.
Shell shut the Convent refinery in December after
overhauling the FCC in 2018. Shell has configured the shut
Convent refinery for a possible sale or restart, the company has
said.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
