Petroperu close to boosting crude supply for Talara refinery

Peru's state-owned energy firm Petroperu is negotiating with oil producers in the Americas and Asia to import about 63,000 bpd of crude for its newly modernized Talara refinery, the company's president told Reuters .

Pedro Chira, president of Petroperu's board of directors, said he expects to announce next week the winning companies after a 46% expansion of the refinery to 95,000 bpd. "We are looking at options within Latin America and also in North America and Asia," Chira said at his offices in Lima. "I think that in the next week we would be able to announce who our suppliers will be."

The Talara refinery is currently in a start-up stage after a USD5-B modernization that began in 2014, and the company aims to reach full capacity from mid-July, Chira said. Peru currently produces about 41,000 bpd of crude while national oil demand is 250,000 bpd, according to official data, so it has to import crude for its refinery as well as fuel products for its market.

Chira, who declined to identify the potential crude suppliers, said that with Talara at full capacity the firm would be able to get its financials back on track and return to positive net profit from 2025. The state oil firm lost its investment grade last year from ratings agency S&P, while Fitch downgraded its rating after it took out loans and issued bonds to finance the Talara overhaul.

The executive said Petroperu was evaluating a financing plan of some USD1.2 B, including potential bonds and lines of credit, in case the firm faced any unforeseen cash flow issues.

We remind, in a press conference with members of the Association of Foreign Press in Peru (APEP), the Chairman of the Board of Petroperu, Carlos Vives Suarez, reported that Petroperu has all the corresponding permits for the gradual and progressive start-up period of the New Refinery Talara (NRT) which has been carried out satisfactorily.

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CSSC Power (Group) Co., Ltd. (CPGC) and BASF have formed a solid cooperation to expedite the progress of onboard carbon capture (CO2 capture) system for commercial maritime applications, said the company.

CPGC has always been committed to providing green, low carbon solutions for the shipping industry. Combining CPGC’s leading capabilities in research and development, manufacturing and supply of marine engines and power systems with BASF’s gas treatment expertise, this cooperation helps to achieve sustainable development in the global shipping industry. Both parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during the 2023 Shanghai International Carbon Neutrality Expo in Technologies, Products and Achievements to commemorate the partnership.

The cooperation aims to address the challenges of energy efficiency improvement and emission reduction in the maritime sector to meet the growing demand for vessel decarbonization. The companies will conduct tests against different types of marine fuel and engines to accelerate the development of onboard carbon capture system using BASF’s OASE® blue gas treatment technology.

OASE blue is BASF’s gas treatment technology with low energy consumption, low solvent losses, and an exceptionally flexible operating range. It is developed to tackle unique challenges posed by the contaminants in flue gas sources from fossil power generation plants, steam reformers, waste incinerators, and cement industry.

“Under the guidance of the ‘achieving peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality’ goal and the trend of ‘green and low-carbon’ transformation in the shipping industry, CPGC is focusing on the development of low-carbon and zero-carbon marine power, energy-saving and environmental protection devices. The cooperation with BASF will help CPGC promote differentiated layout in the low-carbon and green shipping industry and gain an edge.” said Shao Yu, General Manager, CPGC.

Vasilios Galanos, Senior Vice President, Intermediates Asia Pacific, BASF, said, “Interest in carbon capture solutions has evolved rapidly around the world, and we are proud to offer an excellent suite of gas treating solutions under OASE® to meet the growing demand. Through our cooperation with CPGC, we are cruising towards a sustainable maritime industry by bringing onboard our extensive experience in gas treatment, as well as our innovation and dedication to sustainability.”

We remind, BASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany) will expand its global alkyl polyglucosides (APG) production capacity with two expansions at its sites in Bangpakong, Thailand, and Cincinnati, Ohio. By expanding in two regions in parallel, BASF, the global market leader for APGs, can strengthen its position and serve customers even faster and more flexible from the regional supply points, while at the same time reducing cross-regional volume flows. The additional capacities are expected to come on stream in 2025.

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A fire broke out at the Calcasieu Refining Company in Louisiana while crews were working on dismantling an old tank that had previously caught fire, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The incident occurred as repairs were being conducted and some liquid was still left in the tank. The fire, which produced a significant amount of smoke, was quickly contained, and precautionary measures were taken to ensure the safety of nearby individuals. A shelter-in-place order was issued for a one-mile radius but was lifted within half an hour. Fortunately, there were no reported injuries, and unlike the previous fire, no evacuations were necessary.

According to Adam Judice, the controller of Calcasieu Refinery, there remains a possibility of another fire occurring in the next few days as the tank continues to be dismantled. Firefighting teams equipped with foam trucks are present on-site to quickly extinguish any potential fires. Judice emphasized the need for preparedness and stated that the teams would remain until the tank was fully demobilized. To stay informed about shelter-in-place orders, people were encouraged to sign up for Calcashout's emergency alarm system.

We remind, Supervisors at bp's Toledo, Ohio refinery opted to keep the plant running despite a series of malfunctions and a petroleum spill in the hours before an accident that killed two workers last year, The Wall Street Journal reported. The managers at the refinery continued to keep a nearby crude-processing tower running up until a fatal explosion and fire that evening, WSJ said, citing a preliminary report by government investigators.

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China added to crude oil stockpiles at the fastest rate in nearly three years in May, as robust imports outweighed near-record refinery processing, said Reuters.

A total of 1.77 million barrels per day (bpd) was added to inventories in May, the most since July 2020 and reversing the small, and rare, draw of 340,000 bpd in April. When assessing the state of China's oil market, it's common to focus on the level of imports and refinery throughput, and both have been strong in recent months.

This has stoked the bullish narrative that China's re-opening from its now-abandoned zero-COVID policy will boost fuel consumption and make the world's largest oil importer the major driver of global crude demand this year. The question the market tends to pay less attention to is the third leg to China's oil picture, namely flows into commercial or strategic storages.

While strong imports and refinery runs are undoubtedly bullish signals, it's possible that large flows into inventories are a more medium to long-term bearish indicator, as stockpiles give Chinese refiners options should they deem prices are rising too high or too fast.

China doesn't disclose the volumes of crude flowing into or out of strategic and commercial stockpiles, but an estimate can be made by deducting the amount of crude processed from the total of crude available from imports and domestic output.

China's refiners processed 62.0 million metric tons in May, equivalent to 14.6 million bpd, according to data released on June 15 by the National Bureau of Statistics. This was up 15.4% from the same month in 2022, and was the second-highest monthly total, eclipsed only by the 14.91 million bpd from March.

The volume of crude available to refiners was 16.37 million bpd, consisting of imports of 12.11 million bpd and domestic output of 4.26 million bpd. Subtracting the refinery throughput from the total crude available leaves a surplus of 1.77 million bpd that was available for storages.

Over the first five months of the year China has added about 730,00 bpd to storages, roughly in line with the 740,000 bpd added over 2022 as a whole. It's worth noting that for the first five months of 2023 China's crude oil imports are up 6.2% to the equivalent of 11.13 million bpd. This is an increase of about 650,000 bpd from the same period in 2022.

We remind, Russia's seaborne diesel and gasoil exports are set to rise in June amid growing oil products output after refinery overhauls and sufficient stocks on the domestic market, data from traders and Refinitiv Eikon showed. According to Refinitiv data and Reuters calculations, total diesel and gasoil exports from Russian ports rose in the first half of June by 5% to the same period in May to about 1.5 million tons, while ultra-low diesel exports increased almost by 15% to about 1.1 million tons.

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Huhtamaki has made the decision to consolidate the production footprint of its Flexible Packaging segment in Europe and will be closing its Flexible Packaging production facility in Prague, Czech Republic, said the company.

All production and supporting activities at the facility will be scaled down during the second half of the year, with the closure of the operations completed by March 31, 2024. Production will gradually be transferred to Huhtamaki’s other manufacturing sites.

The decision affects all 198 employees in the site. Huhtamaki will support its employees during this period, including providing information about vacancies in other Huhtamaki units in the Czech Republic and across Europe.

Huhtamaki currently has two manufacturing units in Czech Republic. The closure of the Prague site does not affect the Fiber packaging operations in Okrisky which today employs 274 people.

The Flexible Packaging Prague facility does not represent a material share of the sales or profits of Huhtamaki. Huhtamaki will book closure-related costs of approximately EUR 35 million in the second quarter of 2023. The costs will be booked as items affecting comparability and are mostly non-cash items. Over time, the closure is expected to be cash positive and improve our competitiveness in Europe.

We remind, Huhtamaki inaugurated a 12,500m2 expansion of its paper-based packaging manufacturing site in Nules, Spain. The expansion involved a EUR20m (USD20.8m) investment, which included a grant of EUR2.2m (USD2.3m) from the Conselleria de Hacienda y Modelo Economico. Huhtamaki said the expansion will begin production this January and double the site’s capacity.

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