US News A sudden crash in global gasoline prices in the past two weeks has dented refiners’ profits, pushing up inventories in key trading hubs around the world while looming exports from China and India also add to pressure on growing stockpiles. Refiners will be forced to cut gasoline output to safeguard themselves against losses and switch to producing
Yahoo Finance Remember the outrage when a handful of U.S. oil refineries closed in 2020? If you don’t, that’s because there wasn’t any outrage. Oil and gasoline prices were blissfully low and the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the news. Hardly anybody noticed. Energy investors certainly did, however, because 2020 was one of the worst years in history for energy producers. Exxon Mobil
Rigzone (Bloomberg) — Some U.S. motorists who’d been expecting an end-of-summer relief for gasoline prices should start bracing for higher costs at the pump in the coming days due to Hurricane Ida. Ida made landfall in Louisiana Sunday and is traveling along a path where seven fuel-makers process the equivalent of 12% of the oil refined nationwide. The Category 4
Reuters LAUNCESTON, Australia – China is likely to have dipped into its crude oil stockpiles in April, the third time in the past seven months it has done so, a sign that the era of massive inventory builds may be coming to an end. China’s refiners processed about 280,000 barrels per day (bpd) more crude than what was available
Reuters NEW YORK – The Trump administration has argued against a petition from oil refiners asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that undermined the legitimacy of the Environmental Protection Agency’s biofuel waiver program. Department of Justice officials said the court should not review the case as it does not conflict with any other Supreme Court
Reuters Oil refiners are permanently closing processing plants in Asia and North America and facilities in Europe could be next because of uncertain prospects for a recovery in fuel demand after the coronavirus pandemic cut consumption. The pandemic initially cut global fuel demand 30% and refiners temporarily idled plants. But consumption has not returned to pre-pandemic levels and lower travel
Reuters LONDON/NEW YORK – European and U.S. oil refineries face a wave of closures due to plateauing fuel demand, tightening environmental rules and overseas competition, prompting some owners to opt for an easier alternative – converting plants to produce biofuels. The shock of the coronavirus epidemic crushed global oil demand and as some producers, including BP, say it might never
Reuters WINNIPEG, Manitoba/NEW YORK – U.S. oil refineries are moving aggressively to produce renewable diesel, partly to cash in on Canada’s greener fuel standard before Canadian refiners modify their own plants. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government intends to present its Clean Fuel Standard this year, aiming to cut 30 million tonnes of emissions by 2030. Renewable diesel, made by
Reuters NEW YORK – The U.S. Department of Energy has recommended that some of the oil refiners that applied for retroactive exemptions from the nation’s biofuel blending law be granted partial relief, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The move could help bring those refining companies into compliance with a court ruling earlier this year that requires
Reuters The U.S. Department of Energy has finished reviewing retroactive requests from refiners for exemptions from the nation’s biofuel blending laws and has sent recommendations on how to address those requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, Senator Chuck Grassley said on Tuesday. The EPA now has 90 days to review the recommendations, said Grassley, a senator from Iowa, the top
Reuters LONDON/NEW YORK – The collapse in oil demand from the COVID-19 pandemic is hastening the reckoning for those refiners already struggling as new capacity overtakes demand, posing an existential threat to many, particularly Europe’s ageing plants. Even before the pandemic struck, which at its height destroyed over 20% of global oil demand, analysts expected global refining capacity would have
Reuters LONDON – Petroleum consumption is rising around the world as the major economies exit from lockdowns imposed to control the coronavirus epidemic, but the uneven recovery presents challenges for fuel refiners. Refiners must cope with a much stronger rebound in demand for gasoline compared with diesel and jet fuel, reconfiguring their equipment to shift the yield towards light distillates
