Port Arthur (Motiva) refinery
Motiva's Port Arthur is a very large, high conversion refinery located in Port Arthur, Texas in the US.
The refinery is 100% owned by Motiva (a subsidiary of Saudi Aramco).
The refinery processes medium and heavy high-sulfur crude oil as well as light-sweet crude oil.
Refinery configuration
Complexity: 10.8
Complexity comes from coking, hydrocracking, RCC and lubes capacity.
Major process units:
Atmospheric distillation - 640 kbpd
Vacuum distillation - 332 kbpd
Coker - 178 kbpd
RCC - 93 kbpd
Hydrocracker - 107 kbpd
Reformer - 130 kbpd - Continuous
Naphtha hydrotreater - 163 kbpd
Kerosene hydrotreater - 79 kbpd
Distillate hydrotreater - 173 kbpd
VGO hydrotreater - 53 kbpd
FCC gasoline hydrotreater - 55 kbpd
Alkylation - 21 kbpd - Sulfuric acid
C5/C6 Isomerization - 49 kbpd
Hydrogen production - 52 MMscfd
Base oil plant - 39 kpd
Pet coke - 51 kbpd
Sulfur plant - 3203 t/d
Land - 1400 acres
Employees - 1500
Refinery history
1902 - Built by Texas Company (Texaco)
1989 - Placed in Star JV between Texaco and Aramco
1998 - Shell joined JV and it is was renamed Motiva
2012 - Major expansion completed, adding 320 kbpd distillation, a second coker, hydrocracker, naptha hydrotreater, CCR reformer, kerosene hydrotreater, ULSD hydrotreater, C5 isomerization, and hydrogen plant.
2017 - JV with Aramco dissolved and Port Arthur became fully owned by Motiva (Aramco)
2019 - Motiva acquired adjacent steam cracker from Flint Hills to integrate with the refinery