Exxon Mobil and Aramco Texas Oil Refineries Temporarily Closed Due to Unexpected Midwinter Frost

As a winter storm hits the state of Texas, some of North America’s largest oil refineries are shutting down due to freezing temperatures.

TEXAS POWER GRID HIT BY EXTREME STORM

Motiva Enterprises, of Saudi Aramco, is temporarily shutting down its manufacturing complex in Port Arthur due to inclement weather conditions.

“Unprecedented freezing temperatures have necessitated the safe and orderly closure of our Port Arthur manufacturing complex,” a Motiva spokesperson told FOX Business in a statement. “We are carefully monitoring the weather conditions and will resume normal operations as soon as it is safe.”

The facility, which spans approximately 1,400 acres and employs more than 1,500 people, includes North America’s largest oil refinery, which has a crude capacity of over 630,000 barrels per day.

WINTER STORMS hit central United States, causing flight cencellations, delays

ExxonMobil also said it would shut down facilities at Baytown and Beaumont, citing “freezing weather conditions associated with reduced natural gas supplies throughout the state of Texas.”

“Our primary focus continues to be the safety of employees, contractors and communities in the region,” added the ExxonMobil spokesperson.

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ExxonMobil’s Beaumont refinery processes 366,000 barrels of crude oil per day and produces 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline per year. The company’s Baytown refinery has the capacity to process up to 584,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

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Meanwhile, Shell says operations at its Deer Park facility “currently remain stable,” but is monitoring the situation.

“We are closely monitoring the cold front moving through the area and taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of employees and manufacturing processes,” a Shell spokesperson said. “All employees and contractual partners working on the site arrived on Sunday afternoon and will remain on site for the duration of the freeze to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads and to ensure their safety and that of our community and first responders. “

The Deer Park facility has a crude oil capacity of approximately 340,000 barrels per day.

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Shell also noted that the site continues to generate electrical power, which is exported to the Houston-area grid to support “additional electricity draws” as the cold front passes.

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Texas leads the country in crude oil refining, with more than one-fifth of the country’s refineries and more than three-tenths of total refining capacity in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The agency notes that the 30 workable oil refineries in Texas can process a combined total of nearly 5.8 million barrels of crude oil per calendar day.