(Adds Motiva statement, background)
HOUSTON, April 14 (Reuters) - Motiva Enterprises was restarting the larger of two crude distillation units and areformer on Thursday at its 235,000 barrel per day (bpd)Convent, Louisiana, refinery, sources familiar with plantoperations said.
The l30,000 bpd CDU, called VPS-1, was shut in late Februaryas part of a planned multi-unit overhaul. Motiva had targetedFriday for the crude unit's restart. Both VPS-1 and the reformerare expected to be in operation and producing test products bythe weekend, the sources said.
A Motiva spokesman said that a unit restart was underway atthe Convent refinery.
"Startup procedures have begun for a unit at Motiva Conventfollowing a period of planned maintenance," said Motivaspokesman Ray Fisher. "For reasons of commercialconfidentiality, we do not provide details about the operationalstatus of individual units or information on supply."
Once the products coming from the units meetspecificiations, the CDU and reformer will ramp up to plannedproduction levels.
The reformer was shut in late March to do maintenace whileVPS-1 was shut. During the overhaul, the refinery's 45,000 bpdheavy oil hydrocracker, called the H-Oil Unit, was also shut. Itrestarted in mid-March.
One purpose of the overhaul was to prepare the refinery forintegration with Motiva's 238,000 bpd refinery in Norco,Louisiana in 2017.
VPS-1 and 100,000 bpd VPS-2 do the initial refining forcrude oil coming into the refinery and provide feedstock for allproduction units.
The refomer converts refining byproducts into gasolinecomponents. (Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
