The extreme cold is bringing the arctic air to the southern Gulf of Mexico. Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean with more.
As a winter storm hits the state of Texas, some of North America’s largest oil refineries are closing in response to cold temperatures.
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Saudi Aramco’s Motiva Enterprises is temporarily closing its Port Arthur Manufacturing Complex due to adverse weather conditions.
“The unprecedented freezing temperatures required the safe and methodical closure of our Port Arthur Manufacturing Complex,” a Motiva spokesman told FOX Business in a statement. “We are carefully monitoring weather conditions and will resume normal operations as soon as it is safe to do so.”
The facility, which occupies approximately 1,400 acres and employs more than 1,500 employees, includes the largest oil refinery in North America, which has a crude oil capacity of more than 630,000 barrels per day.
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ExxonMobil also said it would close facilities in Baytown and Beaumont, citing “freezing weather conditions, along with reduced supply of natural gas across the state of Texas”.
“Our main focus remains on the safety of employees, contractors and communities in the region,” added the ExxonMobil spokesman.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XOM | EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION | 50.52 | +0.68 | + 1.36% |
ExxonMobil’s Beaumont refinery processes 366,000 barrels of crude oil per day and produces 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline annually. 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 that operations at its Deer Park facility currently “remain stable”, but that it is monitoring the situation.
“We are closely monitoring the cold front that is moving into the area and taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of employees and manufacturing processes,” said a spokesman for Shell. “All employees and contract partners working on site arrived on Sunday afternoon and will remain on site during the freeze to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads and ensure their safety, as well as that of our community and first aid.”
The Deer Park facility has a crude oil capacity of around 340,000 barrels per day.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RDS.A | ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC | 38.51 | +1.19 | + 3.19% |
Shell also noted that the site continues to produce electricity, which is being exported to the Houston region’s grid to support “additional energy consumption” as the cold front passes.
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Texas leads the country in crude oil refining, with more than a fifth of the nation’s refineries and more than three-tenths of the United States’ total refining capacity, according to the US Energy Information Administration. The agency notes that Texas’ 30 operable oil refineries can process a combined total of nearly 5.8 million barrels of crude oil per day.