Russian Sberbank in talks to sell Antipinsky refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Russia’s largest lender Sberbank is in talks with potential investors to sell Russia’s Antipinsky oil refinery, reported Reuters with reference to CEO German Gref.

The lender has also sold the debt-ridden Afipsky refinery to Russian billionaire Mikhail Gutseriyev, Gref said.

As MRC informed before, The Antipinsky oil refinery, which has a capacity of 9 million tonnes per year, said last Monday it had filed for bankruptcy, weeks after a London court ordered its assets be frozen in response to a lawsuit from a trading house.

Russia’s Antipinsky oil refinery does not plan to receive oil this month and has removed itself from the delivery schedule. A London court has issued a worldwide order to freeze 225 million euros (USD252 million) in assets belonging to the oil refinery, owned by New Stream Group.

JSC Antipinsky Refinery was founded in July 2004 on the territory of one of the major oil and gas producing constituents of the Russian Federation - Tyumen Region, where most of Russian oil (64%) and natural gas (91%) reserves are concentrated.
MRC

Taiwan Formosa Petchem will keep refinery output at over 90%

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp is looking to keep its June throughput at its Mailiao refinery at more than 90% of capacity, similar to May despite weaker refining margins, its spokesperson said, as per Reuters.

Formosa operates a 540,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in Mailiao, one of Asia’s larger refineries in terms of capacity. “We have already sold our gasoline and diesel for June. We also have crude intake commitments,” said KY Lin on why it was not workable to cut runs next month.

“If the market remains as weak as it is now in July, we will consider a small cut in refinery runs,” Lin said. Cuts, if any, would likely be small at between 5 and 10 percentage points, as the company still has to meet contractual obligations to buy crude and sell oil products, he said.

Some refineries in South Korea, Singapore and Thailand were planning to trim throughput from June as spring refining margins were at a 16-year low, with naphtha being the worse performing oil product.

Formosa also operates three naphtha crackers with a total annual ethylene capacity of 2.93 million tonnes, all of which are operating at full-tilt, according to Lin.

As MRC informed earlier, on 19 March, 2018, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC) undertook an emergency shutdown at its No. 1 cracker in Mailiao owing to technical issues. The plant remained off-line for around one day. Located at Mailiao in Taiwan, the No. 1 cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 700,000 mt/year, propylene production capacity of 350,000 mt/year and butadiene production capacity of 109,000 mt/year.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company"s plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
MRC

U.S. crude stocks highest since July 2017 on weak refining demand

MOSCW (MRC) -- U.S. crude oil inventories rose unexpectedly last week, hitting their highest levels since July 2017, due to weak refinery output, particularly in the Midwest, the Energy Information Administration said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Crude inventories rose 4.7 million barrels in the week ended May 17, compared with analysts’ expectations for a decrease of 599,000 barrels. That boosted overall crude inventories, not including the U.S. government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to 476.8 million barrels, their highest since July 2017.

Some of the increase in inventories came as a result of sales out of the SPR, which this week dropped 1.1 million barrels, the fourth consecutive week of sales.

Analysts attributed the inventory build to more sluggish refinery runs than normal for this time of year. In particular, refining usage in the Midwest fell to its lowest levels in May since 2013.

"Refinery utilization just can’t get it together,” said Bob Yawger, director of futures at Mizuho in New York. “It’s at the extreme end of the range of possibilities for a bearish report. It’s about as bad as it could have been considering the fact that driving season is so close."

Refinery utilization rates have dropped since January for seasonal maintenance but have barely managed to break above 90% of total capacity, even ahead of the peak gasoline demand season in summer. Last week, refinery crude runs fell by 98,000 barrels per day and rates fell 0.6 percentage point to 89.9% of total capacity. Rates in the Midwest fell to 82.7% of capacity, their lowest for the month of May since 2013.

As a result, Midwest crude inventories rose last week to 142.4 million barrels, their highest since November 2017, while gasoline stocks in the region fell to 47.4 million barrels, the lowest weekly levels for the month of May since 2014, EIA data showed.

Last week, BP Plc’s Whiting, Indiana refinery was forced to shut two units amid an overall of its crude distillation unit; it returned to normal at the beginning of this week.

In addition, flooding in the Farm Belt has cut planting of crops, which reduces the demand for diesel.

As MRC informed earlier, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories have been rising in recent weeks, which some observers have interpreted as evidence the global oil market is adequately supplied and blame for a sudden decline in oil prices.
MRC

Unipetrol refinery should get clean oil on 27 May

MOSCOW (MRC0 -- Clean Russian oil should reach Czech refiner Unipetrol’s Litvinov plant around May 27, reported Reuters with reference to head of the Czech state reserves body Pavel Svagr, who told CTK news agency on Friday.

Shipments of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline are being restarted after suspension last month due to contaminated crude in the system.

As MRC wrote earlier, in April 2019, Unipetrol trusted its engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contract to McDermott International for its Litvinov refinery in Czech Republic. Under the contract, McDermott will be responsible to provide EPCM services for the upgrade of a hydrocracking unit at the Litvinov refinery.

Unipetrol , a.s. is a group of companies operating in the petrochemical industry in the Czech Republic. In 2005 Unipetrol became a part of the PKN ORLEN Group, the largest oil processor in Central Europe. The UNIPETROL Group is oriented mostly towards oil processing, fuel distribution and petrochemical production. In all of these business areas the Unipetrol Group is among the key players both in the Czech Republic and on the Central European market. The Group ranks among the leading firms in the Czech Republic in terms of its revenues, and employs almost 4,000 people.
MRC

Dialog updates on progress of phase 3 of Pengerang deepwater terminals

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Dialog Group said it has begun construction of a storage terminal, common tankage facilities and deepwater marine facilities for Phase 3 of the Pengerang Deepwater Terminals in Singapore, as per Apic-online.

Phase 3 will include more dedicated petroleum and petrochemical storage terminals for medium- to long-term customers.

It will support various downstream operations, including those of the refinery and petrochemical plants within the Pengerang integrated petroleum complex. An expected start-up date was not given.

The first phase serves as a tankage facility for han-dling, storage, blending and distribution of oil majors and traders.

Phase 2, expected to start up this year, is a dedicated industrial terminal with about 2-million cu m of storage capacity for crude, refined petroleum and petrochemical products.

It also includes liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification facilities comprising a regasification unit and two units of LNG storage tanks.

As MRC reported before, in October 2017, Vopak, the world’s largest independent storage tank operator, has launched a new service that allows tankers docking at its Singapore Sebarok oil terminal to refuel while simultaneously loading or discharging cargoes.
MRC