Indian Oil to buy Iranian oil if sanctions lifted

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Indian Oil Corp, the country's top refiner, said that it would resume purchases of Iranian oil if Washington lifts sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear programme, reported Reuters.

The European Union official leading talks to revive Iran's nuclear deal said on Wednesday he was confident an agreement would be reached as the negotiations adjourned, although European diplomats said success was not guaranteed with very difficult issues remaining.

"We were buying Iran crude earlier before sanctions, and I don't have any doubt why we will not buy Iran crude because that favours the Indian refining system if the sanctions are lifted," S. K. Gupta, head of finance at IOC, told an analyst call.

India, the world's third largest oil consumer and importer, halted oil imports from Tehran in 2019 as a temporary waiver granted to some countries expired. Former US President Donald Trump abandoned the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.

US President Joe Biden's administration and Iran have engaged in indirect talks to revive the pact for Tehran to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.

Indian refiners are planning to replace some of their spot purchases with Iranian oil in second half of this year as the US and Iran inch closer to a deal.

"Supplies from Iran will brings additional balance to the market which helps consuming countries," said M.K. Surana, Chairman of state-run Hindustan Petroleum Corp.

He said HPCL will also consider buying Iranian oil if sanctions are lifted and hoped that Iran will continue to offer discounts on crude and shipping.

As MRC informed before, Technip Energies has been recently awarded a significant Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning (EPCC) contract by Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) for its BR9 Expansion Project in Barauni, Bihar, in the Eastern part of India. This EPCC contract covers the installation of a new Once-through Hydrocracker Unit (OHCU) of 1 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) capacity, a Fuel Gas Treatment Unit (FGTU) and the associated facilities.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A leak detected on Saturday at the catalytic cracker of Iran's Abadan refinery was stopped and the unit was restored, the Iranian Oil Ministry's news website SHANA reported, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Hamid Reza Torki, the refinery's safety chief, denied reports on social media and news websites that an explosion had occurred at the refinery and that three workers had been injured, the state broadcaster IRIB said.

SHANA quoted the refinery as saying repairs were carried out swiftly and that there were no injuries or damage to facilities.

The head of the local environmental protection department meanwhile said a complaint was filed with judicial authorities against the refinery for pollution allegedly caused by the leakage, the state news agency IRNA reported.

The reports did not say whether production was affected at the Abadan refinery, Iran's oldest and largest.

As MRC informed earlier, an Iranian oil refinery caught fire in the southwestern part of the country, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, leaving six people injured. Firefighters on the scene at the Abadan refinery have brought the blaze under control, a local official was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency, adding that the fire would be contained in an hour. The cause of the incident was still unknown, Tasnim said. The damage to the plant at Abadan had no impact on oil exports from Iran, the world’s fifth-biggest exporter, as it is involved in producing gasoline and some other fuels, not the production of crude.

As MRC wrote earlier, Indian refiners, anticipating a lifting of US sanctions, plan to make space for the resumption of Iranian imports by reducing spot crude oil purchases in the second half of the year. The world"s third-largest oil consumer and importer halted imports from Tehran in 2019 after former US President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 accord and re-imposed sanctions on the OPEC producer over its disputed nuclear programme.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia"s estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Curacao’s state-run refining company Refineria di Korsou (RdK) said it reached a closing agreement with CORC B.V. to operate the 335,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Isla refinery and neighbouring facilities, said Reuters.

The deal comes after RdK in January selected CORC as its preferred partner to operate Isla, the Bullenbay oil terminal and a linked utility company. Isla and Bullenbay had been run by Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela through the end of 2019, when its lease expired.

CORC, which is short for Curacao Oil Refinery Complex, will now negotiate fiscal terms and other aspects of the deal with the Dutch Caribbean island’s government and other state-owned entities before the definitive handover of the facilities, RdK said.

While the negotiations have been underway, Geneva-based firm Mercuria Energy Trading had received oil for storage at Bullenbay under a short-term deal. That came after a prior deal with oil firm SPS Drilling E&P to rent about 6 million barrels of Bullenbay’s 15-million barrel capacity fell apart due to a disagreement about fees.

An entry in the Curacao Commercial register shows CORC B.V. was established on Sept. 29, 2020 and that its directors are Spanish-born Dutch citizen Francisco Javier Modesto Santos Hernandez Rodriguez and Curacao-born Manoel Hussein De Silva De Freitas.

As MRC informed earlier, Curacao is pursuing a USD162 million arbitration claim against Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA oil firm over its management of the island’s oil refinery. The Dutch Caribbean islandseized a PDVSA-owned oil storage terminal in neighboring Bonaire to enforce claims for overdue payments, maintenance costs and environmental damage at RdK, Marcelino de Lannoy. Curacao separately expects a contract with commodities firm Klesch Group to operate the 335,000-barrel-per-day Isla refinery and its storage facilities will be delayed. Klesch is committed to the deal.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Royal Dutch Shell agreed to sell its controlling interest in a Texas refinery to partner Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) for about USD596 million, the latest move by the European oil major to cut its global refining footprint, reporte Reuters.

The deal ends a 28-year partnership between Shell and Pemex, Mexico's state-run oil company that processed up to 340,000 barrels per day of oil into gasoline and diesel. The deal was significantly revamped three years ago in a move to halve its purchases of Mexican crude beginning in 2023.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had complained this month the Deer Park, Texas, joint venture had not been profitable for Mexico, and said he was committed to "addressing this issue" without providing details.

In a tweet on Monday, Obrador praised the buyout that makes Pemex the refinery's sole owner and gives it the first ownership of a plant outside of Mexico. The refinery, shipping docks and an adjacent chemical plant that Shell will retain ownership covers 2,300 acres outside of Houston. Neither Obrador, nor the announcement of the sale indicated whether Pemex or another company would operate the US plant.

Shell will retain control of the chemical plant that adjoins the 318,000-bpd Deer Park, Texas, refinery that sits along the Houston Ship Channel.

The sale comes as Shell is shrinking its refining and chemicals portfolio as part of a broader shift by oil majors to reduce their hydrocarbon footprint and shift to lower-carbon fuels.

As MRC wrote before, on May 4, Shell disclosed plans to sell its 149,000-bpd Puget Sound refinery in Anacortes, Washington, to US refiner HollyFrontier as part of the European company"s strategy to reduce its global refinery footprint.

We remind that in November 2020, Royal Dutch Shell plc. also said that its petrochemical complex of several billion dollars in Western Pennsylvania was about 70% complete and in the process to enter service in the early 2020s. The plant's costs are estimated to be USD6-USD10 billion, where ethane will be transformed into plastic feedstock. The facility is equipped to produce 1.5 million metric tons per year (mmty) of ethylene and 1.6 mmty of polyethylene (PE), two important constituents of plastics.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- U.S. gasoline prices are rising strongly, encouraging refineries to maximise gasoline production, even as they struggle with lacklustre demand for jet fuel due to international quarantine restrictions, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Based on futures prices, gross margins for making gasoline from U.S. crude oil have surged to more than USD24 per barrel, up from just USD10 at the start of the year, and the highest level since 2015. Driving the rise in prices is a much faster recovery in demand for gasoline than for other oil products as economies reopen.

Margins are now in the 84th percentile for all weeks since the start of 2006, giving refiners a strong incentive to maximise production, even as they hold back output of other fuels. Rising margins have pushed the average retail cost of gasoline above $3 per gallon, its highest level since 2014, according to nationwide pump prices compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Gasoline accounted for 63% of the total output of the big three fuels (including diesel and jet) last week, among the highest weekly shares since 2009/10. Gasoline inventories amounted to 234 million barrels, less than 1% above the pre-epidemic five-year average for 2015-2019.

Consumption was just 3% below the pre-epidemic five-year average, with stay-at-home orders lifted, travel to work restarting and most businesses open. Consumption has recovered much faster than for products as a whole, still down almost 6% last week, or refineries’ crude processing, down almost 9%. High margins will ensure refiners squeeze as much gasoline out of the process as possible – even as they continue to limit crude runs to avoid producing unwanted jet fuel.

As per MRC, U.S. traffic volumes have almost returned to pre-pandemic levels, helping normalise gasoline consumption as more businesses re-open, domestic leisure travel resumes and workers return to offices. The volume of traffic on all roads was down by less than 4% in March compared with the same month two years ago, according to the Federal Highway Administration (“Traffic volume trends” FHWA, March 2021). Traffic levels had been down 41% in April 2020 at the height of the first wave of the pandemic and were still down 11% as recently as December 2020 during the second wave.

As per MRC, Countries around the world have reported steep falls in fuel demand as lockdowns to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus limit the movement of more than 4 billion people. U.S. fuel demand has dropped 28% in the last four weeks, the Energy Information Administration said on April 29. Overall finished motor gasoline demand is still down 44% over the past four weeks from the year-ago period, but a drawdown in stocks in the previous week suggests the consumption declines may be leveling off. Jet fuel demand was down 62%.

Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
MRC