On Twitter @colin_atagi. Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. But this is a problem for which there are no quick remedies. Calcasieu Refining shut its Lake Charles plant in early August of 2020, according to the Louisiana Department on Environmental Quality, citing demand loss during the pandemic. Additionally, refining investment is still underway. The Marathon Anacortes Refinery. 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. 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. , 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. Second-largest Valero Energy Corp is targeting between 85% and 88%, down from 97% last quarter. TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - The company operating a pipeline serving Midwest refineries says it's ignoring an order by Michigan's governor to shut down as she threatens to go after the company's. New York gas stations, for example, charged an average of $3.68 per gallon as of Monday, according to AAA. It would take months to bring the refineries back online, and it would be costly for the refiners. 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. The Houston, Texas, facility which is operated by LyondellBasell Industries, spans 700 acres and was built in 1918 is . document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Unless otherwise stated, photos Big Stock Photography Dreamstime Photos Google Maps Thompson Reuters. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images). Of the two remaining Australian refineries, Geelong in Melbourne is the largest, with a capacity of 128,000 bpd, but is by no means guaranteed to remain in operation with the owners, Viva Energy, accepting a government subsidy but refusing to rule out closure. Staples says that if the federal land ban continues, Texas is set to lose 120,000 jobs and $65 million in revenue by 2022. About three weeks ago, gas at the Safeway on Mendocino Avenue was $4.94 per gallon. And that's when you shut down refineries," says Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. 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. Fire broke out in the early morning that triggered a vat of butane to ignite with an explosion so large that it was detected from space. The president earlier this month singled out ExxonMobil, saying the company "made more money than God this year.". One refinery is set to come back online in . The permitting and building of a new greenfield refinery would take at least a decade; major expansions take several years from cradle to startup. And there's a good chance it never will. So who cares about refined products? But suddenly, an administration that has waged a bureaucratic war on the domestic oil and gas industry since the day it took office has awakened and figuratively said, hey, maybe closing down these refining operations isnt such a great idea after all. On Thursday, the. The result was that five refineries across the US shut down permanently. Informations sur votre appareil et sur votre connexion Internet, y compris votre adresseIP, Navigation et recherche lors de lutilisation des sites Web et applications Yahoo. 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 drop in capacity was driven by a 13% drop in gasoline consumption, and prices for gasoline and diesel hit a four year low. Cinquegrana said only one of the four California refinery shutdowns was unplanned. Until now, California fuel costs followed worldwide trends. The obvious answer is to convert what was once an oil refinery into an oil terminal. 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. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Refiners' prices on those fuels - $250 to $280 per barrel - are closer to what consumers pay, Daniel Milan, managing partner at. Given that the recent COP26 committed governments around the world to measures which would hit targets at or around 2 degrees Celsius depending upon interpretations of the various conditional and unconditional commitments the direction of travel identified in 2017 has clearly remained the same and has, if anything, accelerated. In one particularly unusual move, India's Reliance Industries said it would simply sell the crude oil that it had in transit at sea, rather than allowing the cargo to arrive at its refineries. According to Gas Buddy, the online monitor that tracks fuel prices by community, Santa Rosas lowest-priced gas is being sold at the 7-Eleven on College Avenue, where regular unleaded was $5.29 per gallon, as of Monday. Image Drilling for oil . Its forward progress could shut down that regions refineries. 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. '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. These closures were temporary, of course, but they serve to underline how fragile the infrastructure upon which the industry is based can be, and how external events of varying size and type can lead to not just interrupted operations but complete shutdowns. U.S. refiner Phillips 66 plans to fully convert its Rodeo, California, crude oil refinery into a renewable fuels plant using cooking oil and food wastes beginning in 2024. 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. The question for anyone working in the industry is whether the sector will spring back as lockdowns lift across the world, or whether the impact of the pandemic was merely an accelerating factor within a process which was already underway. Lyondell Bassel called this a "strategic and financial decision." The Houston Oil refinery can transform 268,000 barrels per day of crude oil into transportation fuels like gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other products. The plant was sold to a Jamaican oil storage facility in December 2021. read more. The refinery had already been idle for a decade before restart. (LogOut/ Just last Friday, in its response to Bidens intemperate attack during a speech at the Port of Los Angeles, ExxonMobil noted that it is in the process of expanding its own refining capacity in the U.S. by 250,000 bopd. 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. The long term aim is for the company to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. (LogOut/ Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Thus, the President whose administration has been actively trying to limit the domestic oil industrys ability to get its business done is now so desperate to shift blame for high gasoline prices that he resorts to the pretense of being disappointed that that has been happening. In Louisiana, another refinery was wiped out by Hurricane Ida. Those that remain are running at 94% capacity. The evidence for the impact of the pandemic on the sector is widespread and undeniable. New England's diesel supply issues were made worse when a Canadian refinery in Newfoundland shut down in 2020 as the pandemic impacted on demand. Experts say ongoing fears of a recession had been pushing down gas prices on a global level during the past several months. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Phillips 66 is shutting down its Santa Maria Refinery facility on the Nipomo Mesa as it pivots to renewable fuels, but it's unclear . 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. the successful shut down and closure of the Houston Refinery, including within the expected timeframe; the outcome of . 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. September 26, 2022 Refinery maintenance along the West Coast is being blamed for the sudden spike in the cost of gas across California after weeks of downward trending prices. The average retail price of gasoline increased 51% in Colorado and 27% in the Rocky Mountain region between the end of December and Feb. 20, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration . The Department of Energy didnt respond to a request for comment from TheDCNF. On Thursday, Lyondellbasell Industries announced its plans to shut down its Houston Oil refinery by 2023 permanently. The Paramount refinery began operating in the 1930s. 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 . The previous weeks average was $5.64, according to AAA. We average between 2 and 3 posts a day. The end of the Keystone pipeline is also troubling for the oil gas . U.S. gasoline inventories started their most recent build streak during the last week of 2021, gaining 27.4 million barrels since December 24, according to EIA data. 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. We, Yahoo, are part of the Yahoo family of brands. Prices have edged down by a few cents in recent days, but remain elevated. There's just fewer refiners in the U.S. today than a couple of years ago. It doesnt make sense, the 23-year-old said. Find out more about how we use your information in our privacy policy and cookie policy. 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. By clicking submit below, you consent to allow us to store and process the personal information submitted above to provide you the content requested. By Daily Report Staff (iStock) Even as oil and gas companies' profits soar, refineries across the country. David Ryder/Getty Images How could North America still be a refining and downstream leader if it's shutting down one in five refineries by 2025? Home; . In what is possibly his most irrational action yet related to energy policy, President Joe Biden on Wednesday lashed out at oil refiners for shutting down too much refining capacity in recent years. Read the full story at theDaily Caller News Foundation. Valeros (NYSE: VLO) Texas City 225,000 bpd refinery has also shut down. What the letter does not recognize, of course, is the role the federal government, pressured by climate change interest groups, has played in creating the current shortage of domestic refining capacity. Operating refinery capacity in the US has decreased since 2020 Over the last three years, more than 1 million barrels a day of refining capacity went offline a s a result of the pandemic and extreme weather. I filled up because I dont know if its going to get cheaper anytime soon. The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals. 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. "When you're losing money on doing it, what do you do? 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. var write_html = `
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