Shell pushes back Deer Park, Texas, refinery restart to March 13 - sources

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc pushed back the restart of its 318,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery to March 13, said sources familiar with plant operations on Monday.

Shell spokesman Curtis Smith declined comment.

Shell had planned to restart the 270,000-bpd DU-2 crude distillation unit (CDU), the largest at the refinery, by early this week, the sources said.

Shell is continuing repairs at the refinery to enable it to restart from the Feb. 15 shutdown because of cold weather, the sources said. Repairs could last until April.

The Deer Park refinery is a 50-50 joint venture between Shell and Mexican national oil company Pemex. Shell is the managing partner.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Leslie Adler)