Motiva, Valero restart East Texas refineries after Storm Edouard, sources say

In a notice filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Wednesday, Valero said a loss of power from its third-party provider caused the refinery outage.

After the smaller CDU, AVU-147, completes its restart, the refinery plans to bring its larger CDU, AVU-146, back to full production, followed by two diesel-producing hydrocrackers and two cokers.

Hydrocrackers use a catalyst under high heat and pressure in the presence of hydrogen to convert gas oil into diesel fuel.

Cokers take residual crude from VDUs and extract feedstocks for motor fuels. The remaining residual crude is converted into petroleum coke, a coal substitute.

Valero's Port Arthur refinery is its largest, with total hydrocracking capacity of 134,800 bpd and coking capacity of 161,000 bpd.