Pemex, Shell to Share Deer Park Finance

Mexico's state oil monopoly Pemex and Royal/Dutch Shell will finance in equal parts the production expansion of the Deer Park refinery in Texas, US, Shell Mexico president Scott Roberts said. The multimillion-dollar expansion will increase production from 280,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 360,000 bpd, of which 220,000 will be Mexican Maya type crude oil. The program will also include a new sulfur plant, expansions of the existing delayed coker, and upgrades to the crude distillation, distillates hydrotreating, and hydrocracking units. Shell and Pemex took over Deer Park in 1993, when the plant processed 230,000 bpd. A 1995 upgrade took the refinery's processing capacity up to 280,000 bpd, including 160,000 bpd of Maya crude oil. According to earlier reports the latest expansion will cost approximately US$300mn.