Shell to restart Bukom’s crude distillation unit

Royal Dutch Shell’s distillation unit, CDU 4, will restart in September at the earliest. The CDU was shut in mid-July for maintenance at its 500,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bukom Island refinery in Singapore. Shell operates two other CDUs: CDU 3 has a capacity of 110,000 bpd, and CDU 5 boats a capacity of 210,000 bpd. These distillation units make up more than a third of Singapore’s capacity. Also shut down were a gasoline-making unit (or reformer), a high vacuum unit and a hydrocracker. All of them were scheduled to restart within the year.
Shell has sold only one gasoil cargo in the Singapore trading period in August, down from three gasoil and jet fuel cargoes in July and 10 middle distillates cargoes in June. The company explained that the smaller number of spot barrels available for sale is due to the work on the refinery. (August 15, 2012)