Tesoro Golden Eagle Refinery Said to Be Restarting Hydrocracker

Tesoro Corp.’s Golden Eagle refinery in Northern California is restarting the hydrocracker that was shut more than a week ago because of a leak, a person with direct knowledge of the repairs said.

The work, initially expected to take three weeks, was finished ahead of schedule using equipment that the refinery had at hand, said two people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The hydrocracker should be producing at full rates within two days, one of them said.

Golden Eagle can process 170,000 barrels of feedstock a day, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The plant refines crude oils from Alaska, California and foreign sources, according to Tesoro’s website.

The hydrocracker, which converts heavy hydrocarbons into lighter fuels such as high-octane gasoline and fuel oil, was shut Feb. 2 after a hole was found in a line, a person with knowledge of the outage said Feb. 4.

Tina Barbee, a spokeswoman at Tesoro’s headquarters in San Antonio, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the unit’s startup. She said by e-mail earlier today that the plant was performing planned work.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lynn Doan in San Francisco at ldoan6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net