Indian refineries buy more gasoline to plug supply gaps

MOSCOW (MRC) -- India’s Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd continue to import gasoline to plug a persistent supply gap as their refineries undergo maintenance and upgrade to produce cleaner fuels, reported Reuters.

BPCL on Wednesday bought 20,000 tonnes of gasoline for Sept. 16-18 arrival at Kandla at premiums of about USD4 a barrel to Singapore quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis, industry sources who track the fuel said on Thursday.

This has pushed its total purchases for cargoes scheduled for a seven-month delivery period over March to September to at least 110,000 tonnes.

HPCL has a larger appetite for the fuel, buying more than 155,000 tonnes for September and October, with its most recent purchase made on Aug. 29 from Total, the sources said.

HPCL also has an outstanding tender to buy another 30,000 tonnes for Oct. 10-12 arrival at Visakhapatnam.

HPCL had been actively seeking gasoline since December last year but results of its earlier buy tenders were not clear.

The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

India remains a gasoline exporter despite the buying spree, although its net gasoline exports between January and July this year have been reduced to a monthly average of 950,000 tonnes compared with 1.11 million tonnes for the same period last year, official data showed.

Demand from India alone has been insufficient to drive the Asian gasoline market higher due to expanding refinery capacities in China, where gasoline shipments in July at 1.56 million tonnes were 75% higher than a year ago.

We remind that, as MRC informed before, India's HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited, or HMEL, will start a new 500,000 mt/year polypropylene (PP) plant in Bhatinda in 2021. The company has an existing 440,000 mt/year PP unit at the same site.India is short of around 0.5 million mt/year of polypropylene in 2019, according to S&P Global Analytics.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, the estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 796,120 tonnes in January-July 2019, up by 11% year on year. Shipments of PP block copolymer and homopolymer PP increased.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) is an Indian state-owned oil and natural gas company with its headquarters at Mumbai, Maharashtra and with Navratna status. HPCL has about 25% marketing share in India among PSUs and a strong marketing infrastructure. The Government of India owns 51.11% shares in HPCL and others are distributed amongst financial institutes, public and other investors.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Emerson, a global engineering and technology company, announced it has acquired the Spence and Nicholson product lines from Circor International, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The acquisition complements Emerson’s broad portfolio of steam system solutions for process industries and commercial buildings.

The Spence and Nicholson lines are established industry-leading products that include steam regulators, control valves, safety relief valves, temperature regulators, steam traps and other steam accessories and solutions.

“This addition to our Final Control business demonstrates the continued value of bolt-on acquisitions that fill strategic gaps in our portfolio and diversify our product offerings in growth markets,” said Lal Karsanbhai, executive president of Emerson’s Automation Solutions business. “By adding Circor’s premium steam technologies and profitable product lines, we will strengthen our position to help customers optimize their operations and enhance energy efficiencies.”

“Spence and Nicholson’s capabilities will play an important role in bolstering our process offerings and expanding our opportunities with customers,” said Ram Krishnan, group president of Emerson’s Final Control business. “Enhancing these capabilities will strengthen our ability to serve customers, including automation customers, as well as hospitals, universities, commercial operations and the transportation industry, with a diverse portfolio of product offerings in the growing steam segment.”

The acquisition closed on August 30, 2019.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Curacao’s state-run refining company Refineria di Korsou (RdK) said it has opened exclusive negotiations with industrial commodities conglomerate Klesch Group to operate the 335,000-barrel-per-day Isla refinery, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

RdK has been searching for a business to replace Venezuela’s Petroleos de Venezuela as operator of Isla. PDVSA’s contract will expire at year-end. A lack of crude shipments has left the facility largely idle.

“RdK selected ... the Klesch Group to exclusively negotiate a new agreement for the Oil Facilities,” the company said in a statement. “The negotiations are set to take place during the next 3 months with the intention to reach final definitive agreements no later than November 2019.”

The Klesch Group has offices in London and Geneva. It owns and operates the Heide refinery in Germany.

The announcement appears to bury PDVSA President Manuel Quevedo’s last-ditch effort to keep PDVSA on as operator in a July visit to the facility.

Isla began a search for a replacement to PDVSA after a dispute last year between the Venezuelan firm and U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips left the plant idled amid attempted asset seizures.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Global oil demand is expected to grow by less than 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019 as consumption slows, BP Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary told Reuters.

Mounting trade tensions between the United States and China and increased signs of a global economic slowdown are also set to weigh on oil refining margins, which BP expects will soften in the fourth quarter of the year, Gilvary said.

Oil demand expanded by 1.3 million bpd in 2018 to nearly 100 million bpd, the International Energy Agency says.

"The macro level is creating huge uncertainty and there is no question that is flowing through to demand," Gilvary said in an interview on the sidelines of the Offshore Europe conference in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Global oil inventories have again risen above their recent average, softening the impact of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Gilvary added.

"There is a lot of dynamic going on around demand, generally, which started off fairly robust at the start of the year, softened through the mid point. We were seeing a little bit of a pick-up around our results ... but that seems to have softened off again," Gilvary said.

A change in marine fuel standards starting in 2020 has yet to affect refining margins, he added.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China’s Unipec is reselling some of the crude oil it imports from the United States to buyers in India and South Korea to avoid tariffs Beijing imposed in its trade war with the US, reported Reuters with reference to sources.

Unipec, the trading arm of Asia’s top refiner China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec (600028.SS), is China’s main buyer of US crude, but its imports have been disrupted after Beijing placed a 5% tariff on US crude imports from Sept. 1.

The sales to South Korea and India are an “unusual move” for Unipec and directly triggered by the tariffs, the sources said.

More Asian refiners are buying US crude because of tighter supply caused by US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela.

Sinopec declined to comment.

To mitigate losses from the tariffs, the company has also sought waivers from Beijing for its U. crude oil imports in September and October, Reuters reported last month.

Unipec, which usually imports 6 million barrels of US crude such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude to China per month, is reducing imports to around 2 million barrels on average each month for September and October when the tariffs start, one of the sources said.

It initially planned to store more of the oil in bonded tanks, but then moved to re-sell the oil to other US oil buyers in Asia, namely India and South Korea, the person said. It was not immediately clear what led to the change.

“Unipec offered US cargoes that they’ve already purchased to South Korean refiners after the US new tariffs kicked in,” another one of the sources said.

The very large crude carrier (VLCC) Dorra was chartered by Unipec and loaded US crude last August and is now heading to the South Korean port of Yeosu, according to ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon. The VLCC is expected to discharge in mid-October.

Another VLCC carrying US crude, the Kirkuk, changed its destination from China’s Shandong port to India’s Sikka on Aug. 31, one day before tariffs kicked in, according to Refinitiv shipping data.

A shipping source said the Kirkuk is carrying WTI Midland crude for Reliance Industries Ltd (RELI.NS) and is expected to arrive at Sikka by the end of September or early October.

The seller of the cargo is not immediately known.

Indian refiner Bharat Petroleum Corp’s (BPCL.NS) head of refineries R. Ramachandran told Reuters that a Chinese trader has offered a cargo of US oil to the refiner after Beijing’s latest tariff hike. But he declined to identify the seller.
MRC