the successful shut down and closure of the Houston Refinery, including within the expected timeframe; the outcome of . The reasons for those closures are due primarily to governments. The most comprehensive solution to manage all your complex and ever-expanding tax and compliance needs. June 17 (Reuters) - Since the onset of the global pandemic, the United States has lost nearly 1 million barrels per day of oil refining capacity, with more set to be shuttered in the next few years. On Thursday, the. The refinery that subsequently grew at the junction of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers today occupies 1,300 acres of urban South Philadelphia landscape, an area that is larger than the. The Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden is set to abruptly issue a sweeping denial of economic hardship exemptions to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program from small oil refineries around the U.S., likely forcing one Texas refinery to go out of business at a time when American energy independence is desperately needed. This proved not to be the case in February of this year, however, when unseasonably freakish arctic weather temperatures dropped as low as -13C in Austin, -15C in Dallas and -23C in Amarillo led to the largest refineries in North America having to be shut down across the state. "We have been expecting a pretty hefty spring turnaround season in 2023 after refiners ran hard in 2022," said Matthew Blair, refining analyst at research firm Tudor . Right now, all bets are off.. Well, it turns out a lot of people need refined products," says Blanch. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. The Houston Refinery is currently operating as planned, LyondellBasell said in a statement Tuesday to The Daily Caller News Foundation. SALT LAKE CITY, UT - MAY 24: A driver unloads raw crude oil from his tanker to process into gas at Marathon Refinery on May 24, 2022 in Salt Lake City, Utah. (LogOut/ The refinery processes 268,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and produces 92,600 . Why Biden's refinery push may run into trouble. Nous, Yahoo, faisons partie de la famille de marques Yahoo. It doesnt make sense, the 23-year-old said. Santa Rosa resident Alex Prince said it gave him hope that the cost of driving would be more affordable by Halloween. At the same time over the last 4+ decades, some companies have decided to shut down aging refineries as the costs of environmental regulatory compliance and mandates to blend constantly. All defendants in crime reports are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The response, across many parts of the oil refining industry, has been to think of ways of repurposing the existing infrastructure in order to ensure that defunct sites can continue to bring in revenue. The end of the Keystone pipeline is also troubling for the oil gas . U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty in Louisiana struck down Biden's Jan. 27, 2021, executive order in June, dealing a major blow to the president's plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from . Consultants WoodMac, writing in August of this year, predicted a 9% drop in capacity across Europe in the period between 2022-2023, with clients being sent a list of allegedly under-threat refineries which included BPs 377,000 bpd Rotterdam refinery, Totals 102,000 bpd Grandpuits refinery in France and Petroineos 200,000 bpd Grangemouth refinery in Scotland. Pour en savoir plus sur notre utilisation de vos informations, veuillez consulter notre Politique relative la vie prive et notre Politique en matire de cookies. Refiners turn crude oil into usable products like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images) The U.S. hasn't constructed a major petroleum refinery since 1977 even as fuel demand and domestic oil production have surged in recent decades. Given the highly-ideological nature of this administration and the fact that most of APIs suggestions would conflict with Bidens Green New Deal-based agenda, most if not all of them are likely to fall on deaf ears. Of course, COVID and the government lockdowns also had a major impact, as they basically shut down the US economy. Reports on oil and energy, including refineries, markets and renewable fuels. The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals. Shell announced in November 2020 it would be shuttering the refinery after attempts to sell the plant between July and October were unsuccessful. The COVID pandemic really drove down gasoline and diesel demand which accelerated some things that were already happening, Geoff Moody, the vice president of government relations at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, previously told TheDCNF. LyondellBasell will be closing its Houston refinery and exiting the refining industry, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). They definitely cannot talk to each other about their production time. Covid and oil demand took divergent directions in mid-2020. I filled up because I dont know if its going to get cheaper anytime soon. HollyFrontier Corp said in June 2020 it would convert its Cheyenne refinery into a renewable diesel plant that would produce 6,000 bpd of renewable diesel. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact Daily Caller News Foundation, Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher thatcan provide a large audience. Nothing contained on the Web site shall be considered a recommendation, solicitation, or offer to buy or sell a security to any person in any jurisdiction. The United States hasn't seen a major new refinery built since the 1970s. President Joe Biden has repeatedly slammed the U.S. fossil fuel industry for allegedly profiting while Americans are suffering from high gas prices, and he resists expanding refinery capacity, even as he continues to hobble producers, including delaying lease . Refineries Shutting Down South Africa is refining less crude oil and only two refineries remain operational as it has become increasingly expensive to operate refineries and more. Strikes Back At EU Criticism Of The Inflation Reduction Act, China Secures Two Long-Term LNG Deals With U.S. Producer, Oil Gains Over 2% As Gasoline Stocks Show Second Weekly Decline, Russia Says Europe Will Struggle To Replace Its Oil Products, "Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast Grinding Toward Summer Highs Despite Huge Short Interest" by James Hyerczyk & REUTERS on NatGas, 'Get A Loan,' Commerce Chief Tells Unpaid Federal Workers, Shell Considered Relocating To The U.S. What capacity that has been added since that time has been the result of expansion of pre-existing refineries and the building of smaller facilities with less than 50,000 bopd capacity and are thus exempt from certain EPA permitting processes. I dont know that Ive ever seen a wider gamut of price behaviors coast to coast in my career, De Haan said. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Indeed, Galp halted operations at the Matosinhos oil refinery complex in Portugal from early 2021, citing a 16% drop in throughput in the fourth quarter of 2020. These are the refiners that have closed or cut capacity: Lyondell said in April of 2022 that it would permanently shut the refinery by year-end 2023, as it was unable to find a buyer and did not want to invest to keep the facility open. The same thing is happening across Europe, With Neste closing the Naantali refinery which has previously refined 55,000 barrels per day (bpd), and Gunvor closing the loss-making Antwerp refinery previously dealing with 115,000 bpd with no plans to reopen it if the market picks up. Major refinery operators have largely opted to upgrade facilities rather than construct new greenfield plants because of the projected fuel demand decline in coming years and lengthy regulatory . Dow and X-energy to build U.S. Gulf Coast nuclear demonstration plant, Oil slips as rising supplies balance Chinese demand hopes, Reporting by Laura Sanicola It's no surprise that this is raising eyebrows, given the president's stated goals on an energy transition and also his promise to voters on the campaign trail that he would "end fossil fuels.". Daily Caller News Foundation June 7, 2022. Some of its been very policy-driven and companies decided that it wasnt worth it to keep operating those assets.. In the interim, the company will continue serving the fuels market, which is expected to remain strong near-term.. The refinery had already been idle for a decade before restart. "With companies. According to a report from Reuters, published in June of this year, the refining capacity across the US fell by 4.5% during 2020, the largest drop since the recession of 2012. Not all of those refineries have come back online. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The Midwest is also seeing supply constraints . Although the short term issues may well have been driven by the temporary impact of the pandemic, a study published as long ago as 2017 predicted exactly how things were going to unravel across the oil refining sector, with the key driver of change being a global switch away from fossil fuels prompted by concerns about climate change. Unless otherwise stated, photos Big Stock Photography Dreamstime Photos Google Maps Thompson Reuters. The refinery's major units are its two crude distillation units (CDUs), two cokers, gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker (FCC), sulfur recovery units, and certain hydrotreaters, the. "The narrative until today was that we were going to be driving electric vehicles by the end of the year. This would be the latest step in wider moves to shift the company as a whole onto a more environmentally sustainable footing, with two other refineries in Italy already having undergone a similar conversion. Operable atmospheric crude oil distillation capacity, our primary measure of refinery capacity in the United States, totaled 17.9 million barrels per calendar day as of January 1, 2022, down 1% from the beginning of 2021. UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: Santa Rosa gas prices charged an average of $6 for a gallon of regular fuel Monday. The U.S. had five fewer. New York gas stations, for example, charged an average of $3.68 per gallon as of Monday, according to AAA. The report predicted companies such as Chevron CVX.N, Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.L, France' Total TOTF.PA and China's largest refiner Sinopec could see profits from refining drop by 70%, a prediction based on commitments to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, under which, according to the International Energy Agency, the demand for oil would drop by 23% between 2020 and 2035. Once the assembly line at the Toledo North factory shuts down, Chrysler will begin preparing the plant for the Liberty's successor, scheduled to go on sale next spring. Education: BA, Marquette University. By clicking Accept all you agree that Yahoo and our partners will process your personal information, and use technologies such as cookies, to display personalised ads and content, for ad and content measurement, audience insights, and product development. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Bidens intemperate outburst at ExxonMobil last week and todays letter indicates Mr. Yergins fears were well-founded. Global refining, which is vital for producing fuels like gasoline and diesel, decreased by 1.4 million barrels a day between 2019 and the first quarter of 2022, according to the International Energy Agency. Vous pouvez modifier vos choix tout moment en consultant vos paramtres de vie prive. Total gasoline inventories in the United States have been slowly building over the last few weeks, ending at 250 million barrels as of January 28, before the storm. They're operating above 90% capacity according to the Energy Information Administration, and expected to run at 95% for the rest of the summer. Shutdowns, or at the very least reduced production, have been reported at four California refineries, as well as at one in Washington, experts say. Friday, February 11, 2022 3:56 am. Another prediction is that overall earnings for refiners could fall by as much as 50% by 2035, from a figure of $147 billion in 2015. The Biden administration has reportedly considered addressing the declining refining capacity, but has yet to act on the issue. Phillips 66 announced in November 2021 that it would not reopen the Alliance refinery, which was shut in mid-August ahead of Hurricane Ida. At the same time over the last 4+ decades, some companies have decided to shut down aging refineries as the costs of environmental regulatory compliance and mandates to blend constantly rising volumes of biofuels into the gasoline have overwhelmed their ability to be profitable. HOUSTON, April 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- LyondellBasell (NYSE: LYB) . LyondellBasell previously announced it will cease operations of the Houston Refinery no later than December 31, 2023. Patrick De Haan, Gas Buddys head of petroleum analysis, said in a statement that prices in the impacted areas could go up another 25 to 75 cents before the issues are resolved. The result was that five refineries across the US shut down permanently. Massive Oil Refinery On Track To Shut Down Amid Fuel Supply Shortages, Record Prices 06.11.2022 By Ricardo Perez - NEWS June 11, 2022 [Daily Caller] - A key Texas petroleum refinery that produces more than 200,000 barrels of fuel per day is facing a premature shutdown that could increase pressure on domestic fuel supplies. On Monday, a barrel of oil sold for as little as $76 the lowest since January but thats a reflection of worldwide trends as opposed to whats happening on the West Coast. The Houston, Texas, facility which is operated by LyondellBasell Industries, spans 700 acres and was built in 1918 is scheduled to permanently close by the end of 2023, but could shut down earlier if a "major equipment failure" spreads to major units, two people familiar with the issues told Reuters. The refinery processes 268,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and produces 92,600 bpd of diesel fuel, 89,000 bpd of gasoline and 44,500 bpd of jet fuel. They said the numbers just didn't work, and closed up shop. This is the possibility being explored by ExxonMobil for the Slagen refinery in Norway, with the refinery continuing to operate until any such conversion currently the subject of a consultation with employees has taken place. The company ceased refinery operations at Cheyenne the following month, making it the first U.S. refinery to close in 2020. Stay tuned. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Copyright 2023 Separo. Colorado's only oil and gas refinery is offline and might not resume full operations until March, raising concerns about gas prices and local air quality after a series of recent incidents. Of the three California refineries undergoing scheduled maintenance, one is in Benicia and the other two are in Los Angeles. Not that the problem is confined to the US, with closures some tagged as temporary at the time also happening across Europe and in Australia. Refiners' prices on those fuels - $250 to $280 per barrel - are closer to what consumers pay, Daniel Milan, managing partner at. US governments accomplished this through various methods, including increasingly restrictive environmental regulations. En cliquant sur Accepter tout, vous acceptez que Yahoo et nos partenaires traitent vos informations personnelles et utilisent des technologies telles que les cookies pour afficher des publicits et des contenus personnaliss, et des fins de mesure des publicits et des contenus, dtude des audiences et de dveloppement de produit. From the industrial separation & filtration experts. President Biden and Big Oil are at each other's throats. Five refineries have shut down in the United States in just the past two years, reducing the nation's refining capacity by about 5 percent and eliminating more than 1 million barrels of fuel. CRONIN: That's Patrick. "You're talking about a lot of money to get these refineries that are idled up and runningwhen I'm being told five years from now, we hope you don't exist," Cinquegrana says. Start Trading CFDs Over 2,200 Different Instruments, Germanys Natural Gas Bill Doubled In 2022 Despite Import Volumes Falling, Shells leadership considered ditching Europe. Get exclusive content only available to INSIDERS. As a result of several U.S. refinery closures in 2020, U.S. operable atmospheric crude oil distillation capacity, the primary measure of refinery capacity in the United States, dropped 4.5% to a total of 18.1 million barrels per calendar day (b/cd) at the start of 2021. The California government also provided financial incentives for the refineries to produce products other than gas, such as cooking oil, which resulted in two California refineries stopping gas production. 'Massive' violations in Ukraine a focus as UN human rights body meets, Court rules New York law violates family planning centers rights, SUZANNE DOWNING: Biden Is Throwing Americans Retirement Savings To The Wolves. If the answer to this question is yes, whats more, then the sector will have to accept that refinery shutdowns are becoming a fact of life and, having accepted that, start planning for the future. That's left the country unable to meet its fuel needs as more people are commuting, traveling and driving as they emerge from the throes of the pandemic. She recalled paying closer to $5.25 per gallon less than two weeks ago. Given that the longer term direction of travel is away from oil and toward renewables, however, the more forward thinking companies are probably those which are pivoting their refinery sites toward renewable technologies. Weve written in the past about the repurposing of decommissioned oil and gas rigs as geothermal energy sites, and the redevelopment of oil refineries that are surplus to requirements follows the same pattern older, environmentally damaging infrastructure being retained thanks to the role it can play in supplying the environmentally friendlier energy of the future. Sonoma Countys average on Monday was $6.03 per gallon, which was outpacing Californias overall average of $5.80 per gallon. LYONDELLBASELL HOUSTON: CAPACITY: 263,776 barrel-per-day (bpd) Register for free to Reuters and know the full story Lyondell said in April of 2022 that it would permanently shut the. (LogOut/ , which has scheduled its own aging Houston-area refinery (capacity: 268,000 bopd) to be retired at the end of 2023, announced last month that it would retire the plant early in the event of a major equipment failure, given that it would be impossible to recover the costs of necessary repairs and upgrades prior to the scheduled retirement date. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. The U.S. had five fewer refineries at the beginning of this year that at the beginning of 2020. More than 1 million barrels a day of the country's oil refining capacity or about 5% overall has shut since the beginning of the pandemic. The payment will decline to zero if margins increase to $10.20 per barrel. And there's a good chance it never will. Fire smolders at an oil refinery that triggered several large explosions at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refining Complex on June 21, 2019. hide caption, SALT LAKE CITY, UT - MAY 24: A driver unloads raw crude oil from his tanker to process into gas at Marathon Refinery on May 24, 2022 in Salt Lake City, Utah. In Australia, the collapse of the oil refining industry has resulted in their now being just two refineries in the country, after Exxon Mobil closed the 86,000 bpd Altona refinery in February, following on from BP closing the Kwinana refinery in November of last year, and converting it into a fuel import terminal. LyondellBasell plans to shut down its Houston refinery at the end of 2023, impacting 550 jobs. When the pandemic hit and demand for oil evaporated during the recession, refineries took a big financial hit when the price of gasoline plummeted. But this is a problem for which there are no quick remedies. Marathon has not given any indication on when the refinerythe second largest in the United Statesmight restart. Underpinning the decisions not to reopen refineries is the fact that the U.S. is undergoing an energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables. The 50-year-old refinery was severely damaged after several feet of water flooded it during the storm. The agreement announced on Sunday will taper into a 7.7-million-barrel-a-day cut from July to December and then to 5.8 million barrels a day from January 2021 to April 2022. It stopped petroleum refining operations but plans to resume operations in 2022 as a renewable diesel processing plant, which receives subsidies from the U.S. government. Lyondell originally planned to sell the plant back in 2017 but pivoted and continued operations. We will remove any comments or commenters that do not follow this commenting policy. U.S. refiners throttle back Q1 output after record 2022 runs By Erwin Seba . Phillips 66 is shutting down its Santa Maria Refinery facility on the Nipomo Mesa as it pivots to renewable fuels, but it's unclear . The supply is not meeting the demand for gas and that is what is keeping prices going up, especially on the West Coast, John Treanor, an AAA spokesman, told The Press Democrat. Additionally, refining investment is still underway. The industrial landscape for oil refineries has been challenging of late, with the Covid-19 pandemic triggering a massive slump in demand for oil which resulted in many refineries across the world having to temporarily shut down. The oil company's Santa Maria Refinery has about 110 . The Biden administration envisions a future where the world is powered by clean energy rather than oil with its destructive effect on the environment. While gasoline prices continue to be a troubling political factor for the Biden Administration, the recent inclement weather in refinery country on the U.S. Gulf Coast has caused two major refineries to shut down. hide caption, PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA - MAY 18: A customer pumps gas into their car at a gas station on May 18, 2022 in Petaluma, California. You can change your choices at any time by visiting your privacy controls. "My personal view is there will never be another refinery built in the United States," Wirth said. A key Texas petroleum refinery that produces more than 200,000 barrels of fuel per day is facing a premature shutdown that could increase pressure on domestic fuel supplies. Exacerbating these high gas prices is a huge shortage in refining capacity in the U.S., which isn't likely to be resolved any time soon. Like Marathon, Valero has not given any indication when the refinery will be back up. Slectionnez Grer les paramtres pour grer vos prfrences. Has Saudi Arabias Relationship With Russia Reached Its Limits? There are examples of this approach from across Europe: Total is planning to convert the Grandpuits refinery in France which has been temporarily shut down since February this year into a biofuels and plastics recycling complex. As of Monday, his agency reported Santa Rosas average price for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel was $6. Learn how your comment data is processed. Five refineries have shut down in the past two years, reducing the nation's refining capacity by about 5% and eliminating more than 1 million barrels of fuel per day from the market, leaving the remaining facilities straining to meet demand. Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the worlds largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. Lyondell could permanently close the refinery ahead of the December 2023 deadline if one of several major production units is shut and cannot quickly return to production. Prior to the pandemic, experts were already predicting a major downturn in the oil refinery sector across Europe, with companies having to rationalise their presence across the continent, particularly in light of the ageing nature of many of the refineries themselves. var write_html = `