Exxon Baytown, Texas, refinery begins restarting its largest CDU

HOUSTON: Exxon Mobil Corp began restarting its largest crude distillation unit (CDU) on Sunday at the 560,500 barrel-per-day (bpd) Baytown, Texas, refinery, said two sources familiar with plant operations.

Before beginning the restart of the 280,300-bpd Pipestill-8 CDU, Exxon returned to production the 25,000-bpd hydrocracker, the sources said.

"Exxon Mobil continues to make progress restarting its Baytown refinery," said company spokesman Jeremy Eikenberry. "It is our practice not to comment on specific unit operations."

Exxon restarted the second-largest CDU, the 135,000-bpd Pipestill 7, on Thursday, the first to restart since the Baytown refinery was shut on Feb. 15 by the effects of severe cold weather.

The three CDUs at the Baytown refinery break down crude oil into hydrocarbon feedstocks for all other production units.

The hydrocracker uses a catalyst in the presence of hydrogen under high heat and pressure to convert gas oil into unfinished gasoline.