Offshore Oil Wells, Ports Shut as Hurricane Sally Advances on U.S. Gulf
Energy companies, ports and refiners raced on Monday to shut down as Hurricane Sally grew stronger while lumbering toward the central U.S. Gulf Coast, the second significant hurricane to shutter oil and gas activity over the last month.The hurricane is disrupting oil imports and exports as the nation's sole offshore terminal, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), stopped loading tanker ships on Sunday, while the port of New Orleans closed on Monday.The U.S. government said 21%…
Battered U.S. Oil Producers Soar on Saudi Attacks
Shares of U.S. oil and gas companies surged on Monday, as a jump in oil prices in the wake of attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities drove a relief rally in one of the S&P 500's worst performing sectors this year.Shares in major energy conglomerates including Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp jumped nearly 3%, while some of this year's weakest performers saw huge gains: Chesapeake Energy Corp was up 17%, Denbury Resources up 26% and California Resources up 15%.Oil prices at one point surged nearly 20%…
Venezuela's Crude Sales to U.S. Falls to 15-year Low in February
Venezuela's crude exports to the United States declined in February to a 15-year low as oil production continues falling and President Donald Trump's administration weighs new sanctions on the OPEC country, according to Thomson Reuters data. Financial sanctions imposed by the United States in August on Venezuela and state-run oil firm PDVSA have created obstacles for selling crude cargoes to U.S. refiners, shrinking the number of customers PDVSA has in the U.S. In February, PDVSA…
U.S. Refinery Workers Push Biofuels Reform
A delegation of workers from U.S. oil refining companies that oppose the nation's biofuels policy will converge on Washington on Wednesday to try to convince lawmakers to find a way to lessen the regulation's costs without hurting corn farmers. The trip, organized by the United Steelworkers union, marks the latest move in a battle between Big Oil and Big Corn over the fate of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard - a law requiring corn-based ethanol in gasoline that the refining industry says is costing it hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Trump Wades Deeper into Biofuel Debate
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday will gather rivals from the oil and corn industries for the second time this week as the administration seeks elusive common ground on reforms to the nation's controversial biofuels law. The meetings come amid rising concern in the White House over the current state of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a law requiring refiners to mix biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into their fuel, which has increasingly divided two of Trump's most important constituencies.
Higher-cost Crude Could Squeeze Margins at US Refiners
U.S. refiners could face a continued squeeze on profit margins in the months ahead as dwindling supplies of heavy crude from Venezuela and elsewhere are leading several to switch to higher-priced but easier-to-refine light, sweet crude. The shift also could mean higher prices for consumers in the last weeks of the summer driving season and into the fall if refiners are able to pass along those higher costs to drivers, analysts said. PBF Energy Inc, Valero Energy Corp, Phillips…
Exxon Fined over Refinery Explosion
ExxonMobil Corp has been fined about $165,000 by U.S. regulators for safety lapses including inadequate training and equipment maintenance over an explosion that injured four workers at an aging Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery last year. U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued nine citations, several of which echo previous cautions by federal agencies at two other Exxon plants. The citations, issued in May, were seen by Reuters this month. A separate investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is ongoing and its report on the incident is due by year-end.
Refiners on Track to Spend Record on US Clean Fuel Standards
Major refiners like Valero Energy Corp are on track to pay record amounts this year for credits to comply with U.S. renewable fuel rules, corporate filings show, a trend that hurts profits and has some looking to export more to avoid the cost. Refiners and fuel importers are required to meet a U.S. biofuel quota of roughly 10 percent through blending products like ethanol into gasoline and diesel. If they fall short, they can buy credits generated by companies in compliance. But the cost of the credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), has jumped.
Cruel Summer for US Refiners as Margins Tank
Summer driving season is in full swing and American motorists are filling their tanks at a healthy clip, but that is not swelling the profit margins as much as usual at U.S. independent oil refiners such as PBF Energy Inc and Valero Energy Corp. In April, executives shrugged off the industry's lousy first quarter as an aberration that would be remedied this summer. "We still are bullish gasoline and bullish octane," PBF CEO Tom Nimbley told investors in an earnings call back then. Nimbley was right about the surging summer demand.
U.S. Refinery Cuts Quicken, Impact Crude Markets
For the past six years, U.S. refiners from Texas to Philadelphia have bought every barrel of crude they can lay their hands on to cash in on a golden era of healthy margins. Now, at least five refiners - including two of the country's largest - have voluntarily cut output of gasoline and distillate in the most widespread cuts since the global financial crisis, moves that may deepen crude's prolonged rout as storage tanks at Cushing, Oklahoma, the main U.S. oil hub, near capacity.
PBF Logistics to Buy U.S. Product Terminals
PBF Logistics LP said on Tuesday a subsidiary would buy four refined product terminals located on the U.S. East Coast from an affiliate of Plains All American Pipeline LP for $100 million, doubling its capacity. The terminals are near PBF Energy Inc's refineries in Delaware City, Delaware and Paulsboro, New Jersey. The acquisition includes 57 product tanks with total capacity of about 4.2 million shell barrels, connections to several pipeline systems, 26 truck-loading lanes and marine facilities capable of handling barges and ships.
U.S. Oil Refiners Look Abroad for Crude Supplies
PBF Energy Inc, one of the largest independent oil refiners in the United States, spent heavily in recent years to build the rail terminals at its Delaware City complex that it needed to take delivery of large loads of crude coming from North Dakota's Bakken oil fields. But now it is considering eliminating those deliveries altogether, and replacing them with foreign crude imports, according to two sources familiar with the situation. It has even closed its small Oklahoma City office that was only opened in 2013 and had served as a hub for the company's trading in North Dakota's oil…
PBF's Delaware Cat Cracker Down for a Month
A key gasoline-making unit at PBF Energy Inc's 182,200-barrel-per-day (bpd) Delaware City, Delaware, refinery is expected to be shut for at least a month - and possibly much longer - following an explosion and fire on Friday, a source familiar with plant operations said on Sunday. The unexpected shutdown of the 65,000-bpd fluid catalytic cracker comes as U.S. refiners run at high rates to soak up the remaining profits of a summer marked by higher-than-expected demand. It's also the latest in a string of incidents that have caused gas prices to spike, even as U.S. oil prices have plummeted.
Oil Ends Down 2% as U.S. Drilling Points to Glut
U.S. oil prices traded below $40 a barrel for the first time since the 2009 financial crisis, ending 2 percent lower on Friday on signs of U.S. oversupply and weak Chinese manufacturing and notching the longest weekly losing streak in almost three decades. U.S. crude dipped below the $40 threshold following weekly data that showed U.S. energy firms added two oil drilling rigs last week, the fifth increase in a row. The rise in the number of rigs emerging after a second quarter lull in prices is adding to concerns U.S.
US Refiners' Group Wants Wide Debate on Oil Exports
The U.S. oil refining industry's association is not opposed to lifting the country's 40-year-old ban on crude exports as long as the move is part of a bigger effort to lower barriers to trade, the group's new head said on Tuesday. "We're not opposed to lifting the export ban, but we would like to think there could be a broader discussion," about all trade barriers in petroleum markets, Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), told reporters.
ExxonMobil Sells Share of Chalmette Refining
ExxonMobil has reached an agreement with PBF Energy Inc. for the sale and purchase of its 50 percent interest in Chalmette Refining, LLC in Chalmette, Louisiana. PBF Energy will purchase 100 percent of Chalmette Refining, LLC, which is a joint venture between affiliates of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) and ExxonMobil. The agreement includes the Chalmette refinery and chemical production facilities near New Orleans, La. and the company’s 100 percent interests in MOEM Pipeline, LLC and 80 percent interest in each of Collins Pipeline Company and T&M Terminal Company.
EPA Fixes targets with Oil Groups
Oil refiners who have complained that federal regulators missed deadlines to issue rules on blending renewable fuels into the nation's supply of gasoline and diesel fuel are set to get long-awaited targets from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Under a deal the EPA announced on Friday with two oil industry groups who had sued it over persistent past delays, the EPA said it will propose draft biofuel use targets for 2015 by June 1. The agency also said it plans to re-propose…
PBF Energy: Its Refineries Will Not Be Affected by Strike
PBF Energy Inc's three refineries will not be affected by the strike by United Steelworkers union workers currently impacting 11 plants, the company said during a conference call with analysts on Thursday. PBF said it settled local issues with local unions at its refineries and agreed to match the wage and health benefits that lead negotiator Royal Dutch Shell Plc and the union eventually agree to implement and that in exchange for this workers at PBF's three refineries had agreed not to strike. Reporting by Robert Gibbons
Oil Drillers Group to Fight U.S. Export Ban
More than a dozen U.S. oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters hope would create jobs and boost national security, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday. Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, is the first lobbying group to form on reversing the ban. "The end game here is legislative repeal of the ban," said a lobbyist for one of the member producers, who did not want to be named because the group was only recently formed.
U.S. Oil Export Battle Heats Up as Drillers Group to Fight Ban
More than a dozen U.S. oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters hope would create jobs and boost national security, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday. Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, is the first lobbying group to form on reversing the ban. "The end game here is legislative repeal of the ban," said a lobbyist for one of the member producers, who did not want to be named because the group was only recently formed.
