MOSCOW (MRC) -- Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp said it will shut down its 110,000-barrel-per-day Tabangao refinery in the Philippines for one month from mid-May as the coronavirus pandemic has hammered oil demand, reported Reuters.
"In response to the drastic decline in local product demand and the significant deterioration of regional refining margins brought about the COVID-19 pandemic, the company will temporarily shut down its refinery operations for approximately one month starting mid-May 2020," the unit of Anglo-Dutch energy firm Royal Dutch Shell said in statement.
Pilipinas Shell said it will continue to comply with the government’s minimum inventory requirement during the shutdown of the refinery in Batangas City, south of the capital Manila.
Manila and some parts of the main island of Luzon as well as a few other Philippine provinces will remain under “enhanced community quarantine” until May 15 to curb the coronavirus spread.
"The temporary shutdown will help insulate the company from further potential drops in refining margins and will also aid in its cash conservation initiatives," it said, adding that it can switch to importation of petroleum products if necessary.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday temporarily increased tariffs on imported crude oil and refined petroleum products to fund measures aimed at mitigating the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Tabangao facility is one of the two refineries in the Philippines. The country’s largest refiner Petron Corp operates a 180,000 barrel-per-day facility in Bataan province, also in Luzon.
As MRC informed before, Royal Dutch Shell said it is planning a major maintenance turnaround at its Pernis oil refinery in the Netherlands starting on May 4, 2020.
We also remind that Shell Singapore restarted its naphtha cracker in Bukom Island this week 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 557,060 tonnes in the first three month of 2020, up by 7% year on year. High density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments rose because of the increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. Demand for LDPE subsided. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market was 267,630 tonnes in January-March 2020, down 20% year on year. Homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers accounted for the main decrease in imports.
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.
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