Calumet Specialty Products has scheduled a maintenance turnaround early next month at its Shreveport, La., refinery. The company emphasized, though, that only a portion of the facility will shut down and that base oil production will continue during the 10-day event.
A Calumet official confirmed last week that the company will close a hydrotreater at Shreveport on Jan. 8. Crude processinginthe base oil line will come to a halt, but the company is building inventories of intermediate feedstock and expects to produce finished base oil throughout the turnaround.
The Shreveport plant has capacity to make 8,500 barrels per day of paraffinic stocks, including 7,600 b/d of API Group II.
Two other maintenance turnarounds are scheduled for the first quarter of 2007: Chevrons 15,000-b/d Group II and Group III plant in Richmond, Calif.; and a 15,000 b/d production train at Motivas Port Arthur, Texas, plant, also Group II.
Posted price for paraffinic base oils in the United States were unchanged the past week. The price of crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed yesterday at$61.10 per barrel, according to Bloomberg. That was$2.31 lessthan a week earlier.
Historic U.S. posted base oil prices and WTI and Brent crude spot prices are available for purchase in Excel format.