Refiners awaited resumption of crude loadings at the key Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which remained closed Aug. SPR's four underground caverns, including Bayou Choctaw, are now open and undamaged, an Energy spokesman said on Aug. It hopes to draw its latest SPR crude loan from the Energy Dept.'s 72 million-barrel Bayou Choctaw (La.) site, which was closed as a precaution on Aug. Placid was awarded a 300,000-barrel sweet crude loan from SPR during Hurricane Ivan last year. 'The supply lines are completely shut down, and we have no reliable estimate on when they might be reestablished,' says Robinson, adding 'unless something is in our refinery in a week or so, we're starved.'

James (La.) area, says Robinson.Īs far as we can tell, nothing is getting into St. The refinery takes crude via pipeline from the St. Placid is attempting to restart its 50,000-barrel-per-day (b/d) Port Allen (La.) plant after putting it in 'circulation mode' during Katrina. So far Citgo is the only refiner that has officially requested an SPR loan, seeking 250,000 to 500,000 barrels of light sour oil. Gulf Coast refiner Placid Refining intends to ask for a 1 million barrel loan of sweet crude from the SPR, President Dan Robinson tells Platts, which like BusinessWeek Online is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies. And European gasoline sellers were waiting in the wings to take advantage of the increased demand.Īs refineries began to use up available feedstock, the list of requests for emergency loans of crude from the SPR started to grow. Thee Environmental Protection Agency has granted waivers for required gasoline additives and sulfur rules to help alleviate supply shortages. 31 that it's ready to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve may offer refiners some relief, the plan's details were still unclear as of 8:26 a.m. While the White House's early-morning announcement of Aug. Platts has received reports that terminals were running out of product.

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