(Adds no reply from company; background on problems, details on
units)
HOUSTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc
began starting up the crude distillation unit (CDU) at its
225,300-barrel-per-day (bpd) Norco, Louisiana, refinery on
Friday, said sources familiar with plant operations.
Once the 240,000-bpd CDU is back in production, the refinery
plans to raise the production level on the 112,000-bpd
gasoline-producing residual catalytic cracking unit (RCCU), the
sources said.
A Shell spokesman did not reply to a request for comment.
Production on the CDU was cut on Tuesday to repair a leak,
which led to the coker being shut, the sources said. The coker
was partially restarted by Thursday with one production train
running and the other on standby.
RCCU production was reduced due to the CDU cut, the sources
said.
The CDU does the primary refining of crude oil into
hydrocarbon feedstocks for all production units at the refinery.
The coker converts residual crude oil from distillation
units into feedstock for motor fuels or petroleum coke, a coal
substitute.
(Reporting by Erwin Seba;
Editing by Sandra Maler)