Exxon Baton Rouge Refinery Running at Two-Thirds Capacity

Exxon Mobil Corp’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery is operating at two-thirds of its 502,500-barrel-per-day capacity because of demand destruction from the coronavirus pandemic, said sources familiar with plant operations.

The refinery’s two 110,000-bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic crackers are operating and the refinery’s 23,000-bpd hydrocracker is undergoing maintenance that can be performed while the unit is operational.

Exxon spokesman Jeremy Eikenberry declined comment.

Exxon shut the 80,000-bpd PSLA-7 crude distillation unit (CDU) at the Baton Rouge refinery on March 30.

PSLA-7 is one of four CDUs at the refinery doing the primary breakdown of crude oil into hydrocarbon feedstocks for all other production units. One of the other CDUs at the Baton Rouge plant is the same size as PSLA-7, and two have larger crude processing capacities.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)