LyondellBasell will keep its 268,000 b/d refinery in Houston, Texas, after a months-long reviewfor potential sale.
The company last year said it would consider selling the facility, a complex refinery on the Houston Ship Channel. LyondellBasell notified refinery employees this morning, a spokesman said.
"We have always said that the refinery may be of higher value as part of a larger refining system," spokesman Michael Waldron said. "But over the past several months, as we have looked at a variety of factors, we have determined that it is of significant value to us."
Saudi Aramco in October denied bidding on the refinery. Valero has not commented on the refinery but said it would only consider adding refining capacity in the US Gulf coast. PBF Energy was also interested in US Gulf coast capacity, but at a low price.
LyondellBasell's Houston refinery struggled with operational problems last year, including crippling power and steam losses and a fire that damaged a coking unit in April.
The company acquired the refinery in a joint venture with Citgo in 1993 and took sole ownership of the facility in 2006. Heavy Venezuelan crude remained a substantial portion of the refinery's feedstock for the next five years.
But the refiner began trimming those imports in 2011, staunching a flow averaging 209,649 b/d to just 21,768 b/d in the first 10 months of 2016, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The Houston refinery continued to rely on Latin American crude supply. Imports from Colombia and Mexico have consistently comprised the bulk of LyondellBasell's crude capacity since 2013.
The refiner described plans to increase runs of Canadian crude as Seaway and other pipelines began to make heavy production from Alberta available to Houston Ship Channel refiners. Imports to the refinery did increase, most consistently in 2015 when flows peaked at 66,367 b/d last November.
