Curacao refinery to restart cat cracker next week

WILLEMSTAD, May 15 (Reuters) - Curacao's 320,000 barrel per day Isla oil refinery will restart its catalytic cracking unit as early as next Wednesday, a refinery official told Reuters on Thursday.

Another refinery official said Isla would carry out four-week maintenance on heavy crude distillation unit CD2AB in September and would do a four-week maintenance on the facility's vacuum distillation unit also in September.

Isla is operated by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA. The refinery's cat cracker went offline last month and engineers are preparing to install a rotor that had been sent to the United States for repairs.

Refinery officials gave the information at a news conference on Thursday to present 2007 results. (Reporting by Irasi Jimenez in Willemstad; writing by Brian Ellsworth; editing by Mohammad Zargham)