Oil major Shell has agreed a deal in the Netherlands to partially restart a mothballed refinery ahead of the IMO 2020 deadline.
Reuters cited two trading sources as saying it will work with Dutch tank terminal firm HES International on bringing the HES Wilhelmshaven facility back on line after it was closed down in 2011.
HES said it is in the process of reinstalling the vacuum distillation unit (VDU) there to produce low-sulphur bunker fuels.
It added it had “reached a tolling agreement with a customer,” but declined to comment on the parties involved.
Shell will bring in feedstock and handle the end product, one of the sources said.
HES bought the 260,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery from ConocoPhillips in 2011 and converted it into a large-scale facility with a capacity of 1.3m cbm.
The plant was closed due to competition from the Middle East and Asia.t and Asia.
VDUs typically use residual fuel produced from distilling crude to produce vacuum gasoil.
But the Wilhelmshaven VDU will not be running on residual fuel, HES said.
One of the sources said the plan is to process heavy, low-sulphur crudes like Brazilian grades to produce a range of products, including LSFO.
