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Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com: Turnaround At Shell’s Pernis Refinery Ended – Traders

By Dow Jones Newswires

A turnaround at Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s (RDSB.LN) 420,000-barrel-a-day Pernis refinery in the Netherlands has ended, trading sources said Tuesday.

“The catalytic cracker is working…(though) they had some problems” bringing it back online, a trader said, adding maintenance work on a crude distillation unit at Europe’s largest refinery had also been completed.

A spokesman at Shell wasn’t able to provide immediate confirmation.

The cracker, which is used to produce gasoline, had been offline since April for maintenance work after utility failures at Pernis earlier this year. A re-start scheduled for early June was also put back as damage caused by the power failures turned out to be greater than expected.

The re-start comes amid tightening supplies of gasoline in Europe and strong demand from the U.S. stemming from the summer driving season. However, traders’ opinions vary on the impact of the increased supply from Pernis, with some saying greater production will weigh on regional gasoline prices and others saying the impact will be negligible.

“I don’t think it will make any difference…there’s decent demand from the U.K. and components are disappearing to the U.S.,” a trader said.

Another market participant added that refiners have been optimizing production of components used to make gasoline and that Pernis may also focus on such output over the near term instead of the finished product.

Moreover, any finished gasoline it produces over the coming weeks may also be used to make up any short positions it has and therefore not find its way onto the spot market in Europe, he added.

-By Dermot Doherty and Lananh Nguyen, Dow Jones Newswires; +41 43 443 8049: [email protected]
 

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