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Valero Energy Corporation has revealed that it plans to restart its bunker-producing refinery in Aruba, Reuters reports.

The US energy firm is understood to be aiming to soon begin maintenance on its 235,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) facility with the aim of possibly restarting the plant later this year.

According to Valero, a 90-day refinery-wide maintenance programme is scheduled to commence within the next few weeks, which will prepare all of the plant's production units for restart.

The announcement comes as U.S refining margins have improved in recent months. According to Credit Suisse data, margins are on average 14 percent higher this year than in 2009. Oil demand is also showing some signs of recovering.

Valero announced in July 2009 that it was halting production at the Aruba refinery indefinitely after initially announcing a month earlier that it was shutting down the facility for only two to three months.

Valero's decision to stop production at Aruba came during a period of poor economic conditions as U.S. refiners cut back utilization rates and closed down entire refineries due to the global downturn and weak demand for refined products, which in turn put pressure on margins.

The Aruba facility processes a large amount of heavy crude, which is typically sold at a larger discount compared to light crude. Last year, the discount declined significantly, making it almost as expensive as light crude. Distillate margins were also low.

Valero purchased the Aruba refinery in 2004 for $465 million. It began seeking a buyer for the facility towards the end of 2007 and was reported to have negotiated a deal with Brazil's Petrobras for approximately US$2.8 billion before a fire took place on January 25th 2008 in a vaccuum distillation unit.