Refiners Shrug Off Hurricane Harvey; Will Report Huge Profits -- Bloomberg -- Oct 25, 2017

From Bloomberg via Rigzone:

• per-share profit gains from 48% to 154% among top five refiners

• Phillips 66
• Valero Energy
• Marathon Petroleum 
• Andeavor (formerly Tesoro)
• HollyFrontier

• crack spread is the reason; from the linked article:

Gasoline prices in the U.S. surged to the highest level in more than two years and distributors tapped storage tanks to keep deliveries flowing to filling stations. The crack spread, a rough measure of how profitable it is to process crude into fuels, jumped to $27.35 a barrel on Sept. 1, compared with $18.64 the day before Harvey’s landfall.

Bloomberg wrote the following, not me (don't blame me for this; again, this is from Bloomberg, and, if it's from Bloomberg, it must be true):

Still, one sticking point remains for some oil processors: federal biofuel mandates. Refiners are required to add ethanol and biodiesel to gasoline and diesel to satisfy annual quotas. Those that can’t blend the biofuels themselves must purchase credits known as renewable identification numbers, or RINs. Acquiring RINs can exact millions in extra costs for refiners.

The promise of relief for refiners faded when President Donald Trump was said to have directed the Environmental Protection Agency not to weaken the mandate. 

“RINs remain a mystery,” Brad Heffern, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets LLC, said in a research note. “Optimism on RINs has faded, but there are both potential negatives and potential positives on the horizon.”’

If Bloomberg says this ...