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MOSCOW (MRC) -- US refiner Marathon
Petroleum Corp is delaying all maintenance projects at its 102,000
barrel-per-day St. Paul Park, Minnesota, refinery for 2020, reported Reuters with reference to a source familiar
with the matter, amid concerns related to the spread of the novel
coronavirus.
Several refiners have delayed planned maintenance at their
plants this year due to concerns around the spread of the coronavirus among
workers, or as part of capital and operational expense cuts.
Contractors
that work on a wide range of projects for the refinery were told they would not
resume until next year, according to the source. Planned work included
maintenance on a crude unit in September, according to Industrial Info Resources
(IIR), which tracks refinery work and interruptions.
Marathon declined to
comment.
Depending on the size of a project, refinery maintenance can
require thousands of contract workers working for several weeks or months to
carry out upgrades and maintenance at a plant.
Social distancing
guidelines can be difficult to abide by while conducting such work, according to
refiners.
The St. Paul Park refinery is operating at lower rates amid
reduced demand for refined products resulting from the coronavirus pandemic,
according to IIR.
Marathon Petroleum said in May that it would cut
capital spending by approximately 30% and expected operating costs to be lower
by USD950 million.
Net loss attributable to Marathon was USD9.2 billion
in the first quarter of 2020, as it booked USD12.4 billion in charges related to
inventory writedowns and goodwill impairment.
As MRC wrote
previously, Marathon Petroleum Corp idled its 166,000 barrel-per-day
(bpd)refinery in Martinez, California beginning April 27 in response to the
coronavirus pandemic’s hit to demand for refined products.
Meanwhile,
Marathon Petroleum Corp plans to operate the
gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker (FCC) at its 585,000 barrel-per-day
(bpd) Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas. The 140,000 bpd FCC restarted
on Sunday, 12 April, after repairs following a March 23 brief power outage that
shut the unit.
Propylene is the main feedstock for the production of
polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
PP shipments to the Russian market was 457,930 tonnes in January-May 2020
(calculated by the formula production minus export plus import). Deliveris of
exclusively PP random copolymer increased. |
