OLD GREENWICH, Conn., Dec. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Premcor Inc.
(NYSE: PCO) announced today that it will undertake various refinery
maintenance projects at all three of its refineries in December. The company
has reduced crude rates at its 170,000 barrels per day, or bpd, Lima, Ohio
refinery to make repairs to the refinery's isocracker unit. The work is
expected to take between 10 and 15 days. The company plans to turnaround the
FCC unit at its 190,000 bpd Memphis, Tennessee refinery beginning this week.
The entire refinery is expected to be down between 13 and 15 days, with the
FCC unit down for up to 20 days. At the end of the month, the company expects
to begin an approximately 30-day turnaround of the reformer unit at its
250,000 bpd Port Arthur refinery.
Thomas D. O'Malley, Premcor's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said,
"We had previously announced the fourth quarter maintenance plans for our Lima
and Port Arthur refineries. However, the turnaround of our Memphis refinery,
which we normally run at between 150,000 and 160,000 bpd, represents an
acceleration of work we had originally planned for the first quarter of 2004
and will shift approximately $10 million of our capital expenditure budget
from 2004 to 2003. Considering the December maintenance activity, we expect
our fourth quarter crude throughput rates will approximate 225,000 to 235,000
bpd for the Port Arthur refinery, 130,000 to 140,000 bpd for the Lima refinery
and 120,000 to 125,000 bpd for our Memphis refinery. In addition to our
maintenance activities, we continue to make good progress with our Tier 2
gasoline compliance upgrade projects and are on track to produce gasoline
under the new sulfur standards at our Port Arthur refinery by the end of this
year and at our Memphis refinery by early in the second quarter of 2004."
Premcor Inc. is one of the largest independent petroleum refiners and
marketers of unbranded transportation fuels and heating oil in the United
States.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the
company's current expectations with respect to future market conditions,
future operating results, the future performance of its refinery operations,
and other plans. Words such as "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects,"
"believes," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "shall," and similar
expressions typically identify such forward-looking statements. Even though
Premcor believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements
are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its
expectations will be attained. Factors that could cause actual results to
differ materially from expectations include, but are not limited to,
operational difficulties, varying market conditions, potential changes in
gasoline, crude oil, distillate, and other commodity prices, government
regulations, and other factors contained from time to time in the reports
filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the company and its
subsidiary, The Premcor Refining Group Inc., including quarterly reports on
Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and annual reports on Form 10-K.
SOURCE Premcor Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.premcor.com
CONTACT:
Media-Investors, Joe Watson, +1-203-698-7510,
or Investors, Karen Davis, +1-314-854-1424, or Michael Taylor,
+1-314-719-2304, all of Premcor Inc.
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