Archive for February 2022
Constipated refineries
Recently, it was reported that PBF Energy is considering restarting some secondary units at is partially-idled refinery in Paulsboro, New Jersey. When explaining this possibility, CEO Tom Nimbley diagnosed the situation as constipation: . . as we started to see demand recovery and growing up our utilization, particularly in Delaware to take advantage of the…
Read MoreRefining earnings news signals Tier 3 margin squeeze
Some news from recent refining earnings reports: Cenovus (CVE) reports low refining profitability Cenovus attributed low 4th quarter refining profits to a major turnaround at its Lima, Ohio, refinery and to post-turnaround challenges with secondary processing units: “In the US manufacturing segment, refinery utilization averaged 72% in the quarter. This reflects the impacts of a…
Read MoreCapturing RIN trading profits by theoretical price modeling
On December 14, 2021, Hoekstra Trading notified our clients of a RIN credit spread trading opportunity which is indicated by the gap between the dark green and light green data points on this chart: The black line is the theoretical value calculated by the Hoekstra RINs price spreadsheet model. The opportunity was to sell the…
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