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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Just A Reminder: Half of East Coast Refining Capacity About To Disappear

Huge story
Go to the link
Many, many data points including cost of Nigerian oil
Explains why these East Coast refineries closing
My hunch: cost of gasoline on East Coast to rise significantly -- by Memorial Day

Link here to FT.com.
Half the refining capacity on the populous US east coast is set to disappear. Sunoco has pulled the plug on two refineries already and warns that another in Philadelphia will close in July if no buyer steps forward. ConocoPhillips is trying to sell a refinery in Pennsylvania, idle since last year. On May 1, it will spin off its refining business. More than 3m barrels of daily refinery capacity have closed in western countries, since the financial crisis.... 
Emerging economies have meanwhile added 4.2m b/d in capacity, with another 1.8m b/d coming this year.
I've blogged about this several times already including an interesting dot connecting the Bakken. Search "Preferred Sands." 

Let's see: if North Dakota gets the three new diesel refineries and the additional capacity at Tesoro/Mandan, does that make North Dakota part of the world's "emerging economies" that have added refining capacity in the past year or so?
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 10, 2012 at 9:04 AM

    Who would have thought North Dakota would be such a big player for the country. Amazing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bruce OksolApril 10, 2012 at 9:12 AM

      When I started the blog, I knew it would be a big story for North Dakota; I did not realize it would get this big.

      Delete
  2. CRCApril 10, 2012 at 9:22 PM

    Little wonder why the importation of Nigerian crude is down. The east coast refineries are the largest buyer and half of them are closed down now. It looks like this is a potential for Bakken crude. It would have to be delivered by unit trains. Is there interest along the east coast? Only time will tell.

    The attitude maybe they would just as well see them shut down so they can wring their hands about high fuel prices and the need to penalize those evil oil companies. I don't see a lot of focus on finding compatible crude at a prices less then Brent. They know it is available but building pipelines or having unloading facilities for unit trains in not acceptable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bruce OksolApril 10, 2012 at 9:32 PM

      It's interesting that you say that. I've thought/wondered the same thing.

      Something doesn't make sense in my mind either: half the refining capacity on the East Coast is shutting down and we don't see it being reported in mainstream media; we find it in the business pages (occasionally) and the trade journals. No headlines anywhere.

      There has to be a whole lot more to the story. If half the refinery capacity can shut down on the East Coast and price of gasoline stays within the price of range of what we find nationwide, it suggests there is plenty of refinery capacity somewhere, and it's getting to the East Coast.

      Delete

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