Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner, said it has completed the shutdown of its refinery in Aruba and will keep it closed for at least two months because of low profit margins.
Valero will re-evaluate economic conditions in two to three months and decide then whether to restart refinery units, Bill Day, a Valero spokesman, said in an e-mail.
The 275,000-barrel-a-day refinery is the third largest in the Caribbean. The largest refineries in the Caribbean are the Hovensa refinery in the Virgin Islands, followed by the Isla plant in the Netherlands Antilles owned by Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
The plant processes lower-cost, heavy sour crude oil, according to the company’s Web site. The distillates, intermediate refinery feedstocks and blending components it produces are sold in U.S., South American and European markets.
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as printed in the Houston Chronical
