A large fire erupted at Shell’s Motiva oil refinery in Convent, Louisiana shortly before 11 a.m. on Thursday. Located nearly 68 miles west of New Orleans in St. James Parish along the Mississippi River, the giant complex was evacuated as firefighters raced to control the blaze in Motiva’s H-Oil unit before extinguishing the flames around 3:30 p.m. By late afternoon, the plant was deemed operational except for the heavy crude oil unit that sustained heavy damage to the structure of the heavy oil hydrocracker. The Motiva factsheet says the Convent refinery is one of only three in the world with a resid hydrocracker.
No injuries were reported.
Originally built by Texaco in 1967, the Convent facility is the third largest refinery along the Gulf Coast. It processes 235,000 barrels of crude oil a day including a variety of gasoline blends, jet and diesel fuel, heating oil, propane, butane, fuel oil and sulfur.
“Our emergency response team professionally worked to contain the fire and kept our employees and the community safe, as well as allowed other units in the refinery to remain operational,” said Hugues Bourgogne, Motiva’s general manager in a statement. “We came together today in the face of adversity to protect our people, community and assets, and I am proud to be a part of this team.”
Shell Oil Company and Saudi Aramco are 50/50 joint venture operators of Motiva Enterprises, a Houston-based company that refines, markets and distributes fuel in the United States. Earlier this year, Motiva announced that Shell and Saudi Aramco would be parting ways.
The southeastern Louisiana refinery employs almost 708 workers and 700 contractors.
Officials are still investigating into the cause of the fire.
Repairs are expected to take between one and four months, according to a company spokesman.