UPDATE 1-Valero to shut N.J. refinery for 3-weeks' work

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NEW YORK, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Top U.S. refiner Valero Energy Corp (VLO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said its 160,000 barrel-per-day Paulsboro, New Jersey, refinery will be shut for three weeks of maintenance during a longer unplanned FCC unit outage.

Paulsboro will have unscheduled maintenance on the 55,000-bpd gasoline-making fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) late this month, with the work estimated to last until early next year, spokesman Bill Day added in an email.

"Because of unscheduled maintenance that has become necessary on the scrubber at the Valero Paulsboro Refinery's FCC unit, the 55,000 bpd FCC unit will be shut down late this month and will remain down until the maintenance is complete, currently estimated at mid-January," Day said.

"While the FCC is shut down, the refinery will take advantage of this opportunity to bring the remainder of the plant down for maintenance. The entire plant is expected to be shut down for approximately three weeks during the longer FCC outage in order to conduct this work," he added.

The outage will not affect staffing levels at the plant, and production units will be restored to service once the maintenance is complete, he added.

The outage will not affect the previously scheduled turnaround at Valero's Delaware City refinery, Day added.

Late last month, Valero said it would carry out a plantwide shutdown during maintenance at its Delaware refinery beginning in November. [ID:nN27245962]

The 210,000-bpd refinery in Delaware City will be shut during an overhaul of the 81,000-bpd FCC and the alkylation unit will also be overhauled, Valero said then.