MOSCOW (MRC) -- Houston-based oil producer Hilcorp is evaluating Phillips 66’s refinery in Alliance, Louisiana, for conversion into an oil export terminal, reported Reuters with reference to four sources familiar with the matter, a move that would eliminate it as a source of motor fuels.
Hilcorp, the largest privately owned U.S. oil producer, with operations from Alaska to Pennsylvania to Texas, did not reply to questions about its interest in the facility, which occupies 2,400 acres along the Mississippi River.
Phillips 66 declined to comment on Hilcorp’s interest.
The hurricane-damaged refinery remains for sale and its “marketing process is ongoing,” said Phillips 66 spokesperson Bernardo Fallas. The company plans to repair the storm damages and restart the facility, he said.
In August, Phillips 66 began meeting with potential buyers of the 255,600 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in Louisiana, on the state’s southeast coast. It was knocked out of commission by Hurricane Ida last month when a protective wall gave way, flooding the plant.
“The US refining business in the future is going to be smaller, not bigger,” Phillips 66 Chief Executive Officer Greg Garland said last month as he laid out plans to advance businesses in renewable diesel, hydrogen and materials for electric-car batteries.
Most of the several feet of water that flooded the plant has been removed and most employees have returned to clean-up of the plant, said people familiar with its operations.
In June, the US Energy Information Administration said national refining capacity last year fell by 4.5%, or 848,385 bpd, because of weak refining profits with work-from-home policies slashing gasoline demand.
As MRC informed previously, Worley has been recently awarded a front-end engineering services contract by Phillips 66 to convert its San Francisco refinery in Rodeo, California, USA into a renewable fuels-manufacturing facility. Under the contract, Worley will provide front-end engineering design services for the facility, which will be executed by Worley’s North America West team with support from Worley’s Global Integrated Delivery team.
Besides, in October 2020, Phillips 66 said it plans to reconfigure its refinery in Rodeo, California to produce renewable fuels from used cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oils.
We remind that 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 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 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
Phillips 66 is a diversified energy manufacturing and logistics company. With a portfolio of Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties businesses, the company processes, transports, stores and markets fuels and products globally. Phillips 66 Partners, the company’s master limited partnership, is integral to the portfolio. Headquartered in Houston, the company has 14,300 employees committed to safety and operating excellence. Phillips 66 had USD55 billion of assets as of Dec. 31, 2020.
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