* De-bottlenecking to boost capacity after project

* $5 billion expansion to be complete by Q1 ’12

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON, June 13 (Reuters) – Motiva Enterprises LLC is already preparing to expand the capacity of its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery beyond 600,000 barrels per day (bpd), which the plant will reach early next year when a giant construction project is completed, according to refinery sources.

A Motiva spokeswoman declined to comment on the refinery’s long-term plans.

Motiva has also begun tying in units built in the past four years as part of that $5 billion capital project to boost the refinery’s capacity beyond the current 285,000 bpd, the sources said.

The additional increase in capacity is expected to come from improving the efficiency of the expanded refinery, the sources said.

“They’ll likely reach 650,000 with de-bottlenecking,” one of the sources said.

By Mike Di Paola – May 9, 2011 5:01 AM GMT+0100

When Hilton Kelley takes me to see the Port Arthur, Texas, housing project where he was born, it isn’t to complain about the usual eyesores. There’s no graffiti, no broken windows, no trash on the ground.

“People care about the neighborhood,” Kelley says.

The problem is next-door. Adjacent to the property are oil and gas refineries, petrochemical plants and toxic-waste incinerators. Companies such as Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., Shell Oil Co. and Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) have been part of the Port Arthur skyline for decades.

“Almost every day we’re getting some weird odor oozing through the community,” he says.

Bad as it is, though, it would be a lot worse if Kelley hadn’t come back after years away from his hometown and decided to fight the filth. His efforts won him the Goldman Environmental Prize last month, along with its $150,000 award.

Kelley, now 50, left Port Arthur in 1979 to join the military. “The Village People really sold me on the Navy,” he laughs before adding, “I love my country. I love my hometown, and my community.”

After leaving the service, he found some acting work in Oakland, including a job as a stand-in for Mykelti Williamson in the television series “Midnight Caller.”

In 2000, he returned to Port Arthur for Mardi Gras celebrations and was appalled at what had become of the old neighborhood.

“I found myself walking around wondering, ‘What happened? Why did all the stores close? Where did all the people go? Why was our community falling apart?’”

Industrial Neighbors

The culprits at that time were eight major petrochemical and hazardous-waste facilities, all planted right up against the largely black neighborhoods on the west side of the tracks.

“I believe we have been targeted because we are low-income here, and the people don’t have a loud voice.”

Kelley provided the voice. He launched the nonprofit Community in Power and Development Association Inc. and, with assistance from the environmental justice group Global Community Monitor, started training residents on testing air samples using simple equipment.

The noxious odors were correlated with serious health problems. Jefferson County, where Port Arthur is located, has significantly higher rates of cancer and other illnesses than the rest of Texas.

Kelley has also brought the message of environmental injustice to a wider audience. In 2002, he testified before the U.S. Senate on behalf of poor communities. He has spoken on the issue at Shell’s annual meetings, in London and The Hague — as a shareholder, having purchased a single share of stock to secure the right to a microphone.

‘Good Neighbor’

In 2006, he helped negotiate a “good neighbor” agreement with Motiva Enterprises LLC, a joint venture of Shell and Saudi Refining, requiring, among other things, that the refinery assist local residents with health-care coverage. The deal also set up a $3.5 million fund for community development.

That year he also led a campaign to block Veolia Corp.’s bid to import and incinerate 20,000 tons of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, at its toxic-waste facility in Port Arthur.

These and other accomplishments won him the Goldman Prize. When asked how he plans to spend the $150,000 award, he laughs.

“I’m going take a vacation,” he says, but adds that he plans to devote more time to the hands-on part of his work than to raising money, which has been all-consuming.

After a tour of the neighborhood, he takes me to Kelley’s Kitchen, the soul-food diner he owns and occasionally uses as a meeting place for the nonstop organizing.

‘I Give a Damn’

“What made me take up the fight is that I care,” he says, stroking a goatee that has gone from pepper to salt in the past 10 years. “I like to say I give a damn.”

This is good for the community, and it ought to inspire other depressed places that have become dumping grounds for the refuse of the industrial age. It is possible to effect change by giving a damn and making noise.

“I was very naive when I came back to Port Arthur. I thought I would be here two or three years, get the job done and then I’d be back to the Bay Area,” Kelley says wistfully, but with pride. “I don’t see this work ending anytime soon.”

(Mike Di Paola writes on preservation and the environment for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Mike Di Paola at mdipaola@nyc.rr.com.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff in New York at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

SOURCE ARTICLE

HOUSTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) – A crane lifting pipes for a crude capacity expansion at Motiva Enterprises’ Port Arthur, Texas, refinery toppled over backward on Tuesday, according to sources familiar with the project, the second crane accident on the project.

While the accident was not initially expected to delay the expansion, an investigation into the incident was just getting underway, the sources said.

‘They dodged a bullet,’ said one of the sources of the accident.

Motiva is working to complete the project by early 2012 that will lift the refinery’s crude capacity from 285,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 600,000 bpd, making it the largest U.S. refinery

A company spokeswoman offered few details about the incident.

‘At approximately 10:15 a.m. (CST 1615 GMT), a crane incident occurred inside the Motiva Port Arthur Refinery,’ said Motiva spokeswoman Verna Rutherford in a statement. ‘There are no injuries and no impact to the community. The area has been secured.’

One worker was killed in an April crane accident.

A spokesman for the regional U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration office had no information immediately available about the incident.

‘The project continues as scheduled,’ Rutherford she said.

The $5-billion project, begun in 2007 was stopped for over a year in late 2008 due to concerns by Motiva partner Saudi Aramco about the cost and management of the expansion. Work resumed in 2009.

Motiva is a joint-venture between Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Aramco.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Alden Bentley)

Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. All rights reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Motiva Port Arthur crude units shut–sources

* FCC production cut back by about 20,000 bpd

* Restart of one vacuum unit may begin next week

* OSHA investigating crane collapse (Add details, background)

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) – All vacuum distillation units, which do the initial refining of crude oil, and a coking unit were shut at Motiva Enterprises 285,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, following the collapse of a crane, sources familiar with refinery operations said on Thursday.

The refinery’s gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit was running at reduced rates using intermediate feedstocks, the sources said.

A Motiva spokesman declined to discuss operations at the refinery.

Motiva hopes to begin restarting the smaller of the two vacuum units, with a 70,000 bpd capacity, by next week, the sources said. The larger unit may take at least two weeks to restart.

No one was injured when the 200-foot (61-meter) tall crane toppled over backwards while lifting pipe on Tuesday morning, knocking out electrical power lines and striking piping to the vacuum units, the sources said.

“Restart of the bigger one is related to the electrical lines,” one of the sources said. In addition, to repairing the power lines, checks and possible repairs of pipes supply the vacuum units will have to be done.

The 90,000 bpd cat cracker is running at about 70,000 bpd.

Shutdown of the 58,000 bpd delayed coking unit was due to loss of the feed because the vacuum units are shut.

The crane was lifting pipe as part of the crude capacity expansion project aimed at making the refinery the largest in the United States with a 600,000 bpd crude throughput capacity by early next year.

This is the second crane accident during the expansion project, which began in 2007. In April 2010, a worker was killed when a part fell off a crane.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation into Tuesday’s crane collapse.

The latest accident is not expected to stop the expansion, the sources said.

“They’ll make adjustments in the schedule to work around it and get it done,” one of the sources said.

Shortly after Tuesday’s crane collapse, Motiva said the expansion would proceed as scheduled.

One challenge will be removal of the fallen crane boom, which will likely have to be cut into pieces to avoid causing further damage to the refinery.

REUTERS SOURCE ARTICLE

NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -The Motiva Port Arthur refinery operated by Shell Oil reported that the fluid catalytic cracking unit went offline due to equipment failure Friday morning, according to a filing submitted to state environmental regulators.

REUTERS ARTICLE

On 19 January disturbing rumours over the Motiva Plant expansion in Port Arthur Texas were brought to our attention. Motiva Enterprises LLC is jointly owned by Saudi Refining and Shell.

According to Verna Rutherford of Motiva, changes are being implemented to assure tighter control of costs on the $7 billion refinery expansion project that began December 2007. Demand for Motiva’s products is down, and with lower demand, margins are also down, making tight cost control essential.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA LN): Motiva Enterprises LLC, a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, said it is shutting down its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery after a power disruption. Royal Dutch Shell fell 17 pence, or 0.8 percent, to 2133 pence.