Chevron accelerated a planned shutdown for maintenance and repairs at its Richmond, Calif., base oil plant that was originally scheduled for January 2011, the company confirmed to Lube Report. It has also implemented sales allocations on two grades of the plants API Group II base oils.
The new schedule for the maintenance and repair operations is partially in response to reductions in base oil production capacity at [the Richmond base oil plant] which began in June, Chevron said in a statement.
To enable the operations, Chevron implemented sales allocations on API Group II 100 and 220 base oils at the Richmond plant. The allocation will be applied based on Chevrons records of the customers historical product purchases (pro-rated monthly) from May 1, 2009, to April 30, 2010.
The allocation of [the Richmond plants] base oil products will continue until we have restarted our plant safely and rebuilt our supply capacity, Chevron stated. At this point, we estimate the allocations to be in effect through the end of this year. We will work with our customers to determine specific implications throughout the allocation period. We understand this may present challenges to our customers, and we are committed to keeping them informed as the situation progresses.
As a result of the reduced base oil supply, Chevron said it is assessing the impact on its finished lubricants to determine if there are any supply issues.
The company in June said the Richmond facility was seeing decreased yields and higher-than-typical aromatic content in its 100, 110 and 220 grades. Effective June 1, Chevron established a 75 percent sales allocations on those three grades. At the start of August, it removed the sales restriction on the 100 and 100 grades, but maintained a 75 percent sales curtailment on the 220 grade.
Chevrons Richmond base oil plant has 20,000 b/d of Group II capacity.