MOSCOW (MRC) -- BF Energy Inc is indefinitely delaying the restart of several units including a cat cracker and a crude unit at its 170,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Toledo, Ohio, due to poor refinery economics, reported Reuters with reference to sources familiar with the matter.
The units were taken offline earlier this year as part of a plant turnaround, but since that time the spread of the novel coronavirus has sapped demand for key products including gasoline and jet fuel.
The restart of the refinery’s gas plant and alkylation unit will also be delayed from their initial targeted early April restart, the sources said. Some units will be brought back online in the coming days, they said, and the refinery will continue to focus on chemical and diesel production.
PBF Energy did not respond to a request for comment.
The refinery has also drastically reduced contract maintenance workers in the plant in response concerns over the spread of coronavirus, the sources said.
Analysts have said that refineries in the US Midwest and Rocky Mountains that mostly produce gasoline and have limited storage space for crude and refined products are vulnerable to shutdowns as stocks build.
As MRC wrote before, US refiner PBF Energy has completed its acquisition of Shell’s 157,000 bbl/day Martinez refinery near San Francisco, California. The USD1bn deal, agreed in June 2019, was completed effective 1 February 2020.
Besides, in late March 2020, PBF Energy Inc said it was operating its refineries at minimum rates, with throughput about 30% lower than the refiner’s expectations, as coronavirus-driven travel curbs hit fuel demand.
We also remind that Shell Singapore restarted its naphtha cracker in Bukom Island in early December 2019, following a two months maintenance shutdown since the beginning of October 2019. Thus, this cracker was taken off-stream for the turnaround on 1 October 2019. The cracker is able to produce 960,000 tons/year of ethylene and 550,000 tons/year of propylene.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
MRC