By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 18 -- Motiva Enterprises LLC has delayed until first-quarter 2012 the completion target for a project that will make its 285,000-b/d refinery at Port Arthur, Tex., the largest in the US.
Motiva, a joint venture of Shell Oil Co. and Saudi Refining Inc., originally planned to complete the $7 billion expansion in late 2010.
The project will add a single-train crude distillation unit with a capacity of 325,000 b/d.
Other new units include an 85,000-b/d catalytic reformer with associated isomerization and hydrotreating units, a sulfur recovery facility, a 75,000-b/d hydrocracker integrated with a new 60,000-b/d diesel hydrotreater, a 50,000-b/d hydrotreater for feed to the existing catalytic cracker, and a 95,000-b/d coker.
Motiva also is adding a 150-Mw electric power station that will produce 2 million lb/hr of steam.
The expanded Port Arthur facility will be the country's largest refinery producer of sulfur and largest producer of petroleum coke.
The main project contractor is a joint venture of Bechtel and Jacobs Engineering Group.
The largest US refinery now is ExxonMobil's 572,500-b/d facility in Baytown, Tex.