The sole crude distillation unit (CDU) at TotalEnergies' 219,000 b/d Donges refinery on the French Atlantic coast will shut for planned maintenance for about seven weeks from early May, market sources said.
Market participants familiar with the refinery's operations said the halt would begin on 9 May and run until the end of June, in line with a May-June timetable indicated by TotalEnergies sources since late last year. The company has not confirmed the timeline.
The extent of any shutdowns affecting secondary units was unconfirmed, although Argus understands the refinery's gasoline-making fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit will be affected.
Bitumen production will be halted for the duration of the turnaround, market participants said. But bitumen truck loading operations will continue throughout the shutdown to supply domestic construction firms during the peak road-paving season.
To ensure sufficient stocks for May-June sales, TotalEnergies has prioritised regular contractual supply this month rather than additional spot demand, most notably from the ongoing partial maintenance shutdown at the Port Jerome refinery on the northern French coast.
TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said in February that the firm was responding to reduced French gasoline exports and rising domestic consumption by upgrading the Donges refinery. The upgrades include installing a hydrodesulphuriser and associated hydrogen unit "in order to be able to produce gasoline on spec and not for the export market", he said.
Pouyanne said the units were close to starting up, while acknowledging Donges had "suffered for several years" and that staff had previously raised concerns over the refinery's future.
