By Jim Polson
Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) — Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil company, and Valero Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. oil refiner, said Hurricane Humberto knocked out power to their Port Arthur, Texas, plants today.
A blackout shut Valero’s plant in Port Arthur, Texas, and the company is sending crews to assist, Bill Day, spokesman for San Antonio-based Valero said in an e-mailed statement. No other Valero refineries were affected, Day said.
Rick Hagar, spokesman for Paris-based Total, said no information was available on output at their refinery. Crews are assessing damage and working to restore electricity, which failed about 4:33 a.m. local time, Total said in a report to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Valero’s Port Arthur refinery is the company’s largest, capable of processing 325,000 barrels of crude per day. Total’s plant there can process 240,000 barrels per day of crude oil and condensate. Port Arthur is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) east of Houston, near the Louisiana border.
Winds gusted to 80 miles (129 kilometers) per hour, causing loss of power throughout the area, according to the Total report.
The company had reported reduced processing rates at the refinery yesterday after a power surge caused by lightning shut down a sulfur recovery unit and disrupted a tailgas thermal oxidizer. The plant was “up and running” by 10 p.m. local time yesterday, Hagar said.
Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery was also in the path of the hurricane.
“We’re on the back side of the storm now in Beaumont,” Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Kathleen Jackson said today in an interview. “The refinery’s operational, but of course, we’re still assessing everything.”
A third Port Arthur refinery is owned by Motiva Enterprises LLC, a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Arabian Oil Co., with a capacity of 285,000 barrels per day. Motiva doesn’t comment on refinery operations, spokeswoman Sue Parsley said in a telephone interview.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Polson in New York at [email protected] .
Last Updated: September 13, 2007 09:19 EDT
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
