01.09
By Ken Peccatiello
Amid the doom and gloom in our current refining economics, the sun rises on a new day. (Unless of course you’re in the Midwest experiencing sub-zero weather or being surprised in Atlanta, Georgia with ice and snow http://www.weather.com/multimedia/videoplayer.html?clip=16227 or turning up the heat if you live in the northeast the northwest too for that matter. Did I leave anyone out? )
Deustshce Bank hosted an energy conference in Boston on January 7. The conference was very well attended by 96% of the refineries as everyone jockeys for information so they know how to position themselves in 2010. Lots of sad faces though, very depressed as the bleak outlook was proclaimed. No one’s making any money, everyone wants to sell. The buyers aren’t offering very much. So where’s that bright spot?
The oil industry and the federal government, recently at odds on many policies, may be walking down the aisle together. European refiner Petroplus’s CEO offered that there’s a likelihood of Washington imposing tariffs on U.S. oil imports. This would be bullish for U.S. refiners. Anyone have the inside scoop?
Ken@CatCracking.com
The cold snap is affecting refiners across the country.
The Delek in Tyler, TX shut down an FCCU boiler at its 60,000-barrel-per-day refinery on January 8th. The cold temperatures caused an instrument transmitter malfunction according to government filings.
Cold weather causes more problems.
At ExxonMobil’s Baytown Refinery, freezing caused a line leak to a gofiner unit which lead to flaring associated with equipment clearing to repair the line. The gofiner technology is designed by ExxonMobil for desulphurising crude oil and converting heavy fractions into light fractions. The Gofiner unit for catalytic cracking breaks up heavy hydrocarbon molecules into lighter fractions using heat and catalysts.
Cold weather effects UK too.
UK gas reserves aredown to six hours as imports fail to arrive. Cold weather interrupted the flow from Norway. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/11/uk-gas-reserves-imports-fail
National Grid issued an appeal for more gas to be pumped to the UK after unusually cold weather led to a shutdown of the Ormen Lange processing centre in the Norwegian Sea, interrupting gas flows to the UK at a time of peak demand.
It is the fourth time this month that the company has issued the notice to the market. The so-called gas balancing alert has been issued only five times in total since the system was introduced three years ago.
Most of the UK’s gas arrives by pipeline from the North Sea or continental Europe as well as in liquefied form in tankers, and National Grid expects other suppliers to make up the shortfall.
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