HOUSTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Independent West Coast refinerTesoro Corp plans to permanently close agasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit when itintegrates its two Los Angeles-area refineries by early 2017,the company said on its website.
Tesoro owned a 104,500 bpd refinery on the edge of Wilmington, California when it purchased an adjoining 251,000bpd refinery located along the city limit of Carson, California,from BP Plc in 2013.
Tesoro has been operating the refineries separately.
The company has previously said it plans to close the 36,000bpd cat cracker at the Wilmington refinery, without specifyingwhen it would complete the work.
The Carson refinery's FCCU has daily throughput capacity of104,000 bpd.
Marathon Petroleum Corp plans to close down an FCCUas it rationalizes operations at adjoining refineries in TexasCity, Texas, one of which was purchased from BP in 2013.
Valero Energy Corp permanently shut a FCCU at its125,000 bpd refinery in Meraux, Louisiana, in September as partof an agreement the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency toreduce pollution from the plant. (Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Richard Chang)
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