Shell Deer Park refinery production may resume Friday –sources

(Adds past Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) statement, paragraph 4)

HOUSTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc (LSE: 0LN9.L - news) may begin resuming production at its 325,700-barrel-per-day (bpd) joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery as early as Friday, sources familiar with plant operations said on Thursday.

Shell plans to begin putting crude oil into the 270,000-bpd DU-2 crude distillation unit, the larger of two at the plant, as early as Friday, the sources said. The refinery was shut on Aug. 27 by Tropical Storm Harvey.

A Shell spokesman wasn't immediately available to comment.

The company said on Sept. 8 the refinery was beginning restart activities.

Other production units will come on-line after DU-2 successfully resumes production, according to the sources. Shell began restarting DU-2 on Monday night and was stalled for part of the week by the outage of a 650-pound (295-kilogram) steam line to the unit.

After crude oil is introduced, Shell will start to test the products coming from DU-2 to see if they meet specifications.

After bringing DU-2's production within specification, the refinery will begin restarting other production units like the 70,000-bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit.

The 45,900-bpd CR-3 reformer was not expected to be ready to restart over the weekend, the sources said.

Reformers convert low-octane refining by-products into high-octane gasoline blending components.

Shell was preparing to restart DU-2 following repairs from an Aug. 17 fire when Harvey hit the Houston area on Aug. 27.

The Deer Park refinery is a 50-50 joint venture between Shell and Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico's national oil company. (Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Sandra Maler)