Refiner Valero posts smaller loss than feared as demand rebounds

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Independent US refiner Valero Energy Corp reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss on Thursday, adding that it saw “a rapid recovery” in demand for its products as the quarter progressed, reported Reuters.

The results, which kicked off US refining earnings, failed to lift investor sentiment as shares of the company and other refiners fell 3% to 7%, dragged down by oil prices that plummeted on concerns fuel demand recovery could be capped by a resurgence in coronavirus infections.

Global fuel consumption in the second quarter recovered from record lows in March and April, as countries started emerging from lockdowns.

“While the impact of the pandemic and the ensuing global economic downturn so far this year has been significant, we saw a rapid recovery in demand for refined products as we moved through the quarter,” Valero’s Chief Executive Officer Joe Gorder said.

Valero forecast current-quarter throughput, or the volume of crude processed by its refineries, to be about 2.43 million barrels per day (bpd), down more than 18% from a year earlier.

Throughput for the second quarter dropped 22% to 2.3 million bpd, while refining margins fell 58% to USD1.08 billion.

Credit Suisse analyst Manav Gupta said the results were better-tha-feared, helped by Valero’s renewable diesel and ethanol segments. He added refining equities would move higher or lower, depending upon whether Texas, Florida and Arizona can successfully avoid another virus-led shutdown.

On an adjusted basis, Valero lost USD1.25 per share in the reported quarter, compared to analysts’ estimates of a loss of USD1.41 per share loss, according to Refinitiv IBES.

The San Antonio, Texas-based company also recorded a gain of USD1.8 billion in the quarter related to inventory valuation.

As MRC reported earlier, in June 2020, Valero Energy Corp’s Memphis, Tennessee, crude oil refinery was operating at two-thirds of its 180,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) capacity because of low demand in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Memphis refinery cut production by as much as 50% in early April and has been raising production gradually since then.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- In a late July 31 advisory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Hurricane Center said heavy rains associated with Hurricane Isaias could begin to affect south and east central Florida late Friday night and the eastern Carolinas by early next week, potentially resulting in isolated flash flooding, reported S&P Global.

NOAA said the Category 1 hurricane was expected to reach the east coast of Florida on Saturday morning.
It said that storm surge along the northeastern Florida coast could come late in the weekend, and spread northward along the remainder of the US East Coast through early next week.

Florida Power & Light said July 31 it had a restoration workforce of more than 10,000 "ready to respond to Hurricane Isaias amid the global COVID-19 pandemic."

It said it will bring in crews from sister company Gulf Power and has secured more than 2,000 additional restoration personnel from nearly 10 states. "We are committed to restoring service in between bands of severe weather, as long as winds are below 35 MPH," the company said.

FPL owns the two-reactor, 1,600-MW Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station located two miles east of Homestead, Florida, and about 25 miles south of Miami.

According to preliminary mapping of Isaias' path, the Turkey Point facility may escape the storm's more severe western rain bands on Saturday.

FPL's 1,880-MW St. Lucie Nuclear facility located further up the Florida coast on Hutchinson Island, may not be so lucky. The center of the storm eye could pass offshore of the St. Lucie facility early on Sunday morning.

In a statement, Duke Energy Florida said it believed its customers in central and eastern Florida may experience weather-related outages.

On the natural gas front, analysts have noted that by looking at the path and what previous storms have done, typically the ones that hit the eastern part of Florida just push down gas demand for a few days and then it rebounds relatively quickly. Storms hitting the Louisiana and Houston Ship Channel areas usually have a larger market impact.

The current expected path of the storm includes the Georgia coast, where Kinder Morgan's Elba Liquefaction the smallest of the six major US LNG export facilities - is located. The operator is monitoring the storm's development, but it is too early" to determine whether a reduction in staff or liquefaction activity at the site would be needed, spokeswoman Katherine Hill said July 31.

Oil and gas production isn't expected to be affected much because Isaias is projected to remain out of the Gulf of Mexico and instead move along eastern Florida and up the East Coast.

However, a series of southern Florida ports were closing to inbound traffic on July 31, potentially affecting shipments of refined petroleum products.

The ports of Miami, Everglades, Palm Beach, Ft. Pierce, Key West, as well as the Miami River and the Florida Keys all moved to Yankee condition status on July 31, meaning that inbound traffic is closed without explicit permission from the port captains, and movements are restricted within the ports.

Other Florida ports remained open to traffic - at X-Ray status - with some elevated restrictions to ship movements within the ports. The Port of Jacksonville, including Port Canaveral and the Port of Fernandina, said it is scheduled to move to X-Ray status on the evening of July 31.

Florida relies on waterborne refined products supplies, as it has no refineries and is not served by major pipelines. Refined products are delivered primarily to marine terminals at the Port of Jacksonville and Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale on the east coast, and the Port of Tampa on the west coast.

Kinder Morgan's Central Florida Pipeline delivers refined products from the Tampa terminal to Orlando.

"We are monitoring the storm's path and activating our emergency response plans, as needed," said Kinder Morgan spokeswoman Melissa Ruiz on July 31.

As MRC wrote befoe, as Texas prepared for heavy rains and possible gale force winds, July 25-26 brought on by Tropical Depression 8 in the central Gulf of Mexico, the US Coast Guard began to restrict port activities. The National Hurricane Center on June 23 issued a tropical storm watch from Port Mansfield, Texas, just above the Mexico border, to High Island, just north of Galveston, but noted that tropical storm warnings could be issued later that day as the storm progresses westward towards land. Flooding was expected to be the main concern of Tropical Depression 8, which could have impacted some refineries in Texas, home to about 30% of total US refining capacity, and refiners were keeping an eye on the storm. Refiners like Phillips 66, which has Texas coastal refineries, were keeping a close eye on the weather.

As MRC informed earlier, US-based Phillips 66 remains open to developing another ethane cracker for its Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem) joint venture, the refiner's CEO said in March 2018.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) recently decided to acquire two German carbon fiber recycling companies, CFK Valley Stade Recycling GmbH & Co. KG (CFK) and carboNXT GmbH, through its subsidiary Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials AG, as a part of the company's efforts to promote the circular economy, said the company.

The acquisition is slated for completion around early August. Based on the MCHC Group's medium- to long-term basic management strategy KAITEKI Vision 30, MCC views the circular economy as a key element in its realization of KAITEKI 2, and in-house product recycling is an important initiative within this strategy.

CFK has its own network to collect leftover materials generated during the molding of intermediate materials such as carbon fiber prepreg, mainly from customers in mobility-related industries, and also draws on its advanced proprietary technology to recycle these materials into usable forms of carbon fiber. In turn, carboNXT sells these CFK-recycled products.

MCC has also acquired c-m-p GmbH 3, a carbon fiber prepreg manufacturer, as well as the Minger Group 4 of engineering plastics recycling companies. With the latest acquisition, MCC will establish a chain from the manufacture of carbon fibers and carbon fiber composites to collection and recycling of products, in Europe, following Japan, where the chain has already been established. 5 In the future, MCC will offer total solutions including product recycling to customers, by using recycled products as raw materials within the group.

Going forward, the company will continue to strengthen its capability to propose solutions to users as a leader in the carbon fiber composite industry and will contribute to the realization of a recycling-based society.

As MRC informed Mitsubishi Chemical resumed production at the end of June at the monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant in Kashima, Japan after renovations. Maintenance at this enterprise with a capacity of 300,000 tonees/year was started in mid-May of this year.

According to MRC's ScanPlast, in May of this year, the estimated PET consumption in Russia amounted to 70,170 tonnes, which corresponds to the level of consumption last year (70,450 tonnes). In total for the period January - May of this year, the estimated consumption of PET in the Russian Federation amounted to 304,310 tonnes of material. This is 3% less than in 2019.

Mitsubishi Chemical, a Japanese integrated chemical company, was formed on October 1, 1990 through the merger of Mitsubishi Kasei and Mitsubishi Petrochemical Co. Due to its wide range of activities, it is one of the ten leading chemical companies in the world.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell by nearly 11 million barrels last week as imports dropped, while refined product inventories rose, the Energy Information Administration said, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Crude inventories fell by 10.6 million barrels in the week to July 24 to 526 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 357,000-barrel rise. It was the largest one-week fall in crude stocks since December.

Net U.S. crude imports fell 1 million barrels per day, the EIA said, dropping to 1.9 million bpd. "If we are seeing a drawdown that is a key indicator in terms of largely a market that’s starting to move more aggressively into balance,” said Tony Headrick, energy markets analyst at CHS Hedging."

U.S. gasoline stocks rose by 654,000 barrels, the EIA said, compared with forecasts for a 733,000-barrel drop.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 503,000 barrels, versus expectations for a 267,000-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.

Refinery utilization rates rose 1.6 percentage points to 79.5% of total capacity, their highest since late March. Refinery crude runs rose by 389,000 bpd last week, the EIA said.

Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).

According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- PQ Group today reported second-quarter net income down 48.0% year-on-year (YOY), to USD15.9 million, on sales down 16.7%, to USD359.5 million, said Chemweek.

Adjusted earnings totaled 22 cents/share, ahead of analysts’ consensus estimate of 19 cents/share, as reported by Refinitiv (New York, New York). The declines were “largely on lower volume from COVID-19 impacts related to stay-at-home mandates and demand disruption for industrial applications,” PQ says.

Performance chemicals segment sales declined 19.8% YOY, to $142.6 million, while segment adjusted EBITDA was down 17.5%, to USD34.0 million. Demand from industrial applications declined during the quarter, but demand from personal care applications generally held up well.

Performance materials segment sales fell 12.3% YOY, to USD104.3 million, while segment adjusted EBITDA declined 6.5%, to USD27.3 million. Lower industrial demand and lower demand from European highway striping activity was partly offset by solid North American highway striping activity.

Refining services segment sales fell 22.9% YOY, to USD90.4 million, on lower gasoline consumption and weaker demand from the automotive and industrial sectors. Catalysts sales grew on higher demand for polyolefin, chemical, specialty, and hydrocracking catalysts.

As MRC informed earlier, Russia's output of chemical products rose in June 2020 by 2.6% year on year. However, production of basic chemicals increased year on year by 4.9% in the first six months of 2020. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the output in January-June. Production of benzene was 106,000 tonnes in June 2020, compared to 110,000 tonnes a month earlier. Overall output of this product reached 721,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 3.9% year on year.
MRC