MOSCOW (MRC) -- US refiner Valero Energy reported a 49% fall in profit, hurt by weak margins and higher inventories, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Refiners ramped up production in 2015, leading to higher inventories and weaker margins this year as demand softened during the mild winter.
Valero's refining throughput margin fell to USD7.96/bbl in the first quarter, from USD12.39/bbl last year. Net income attributable to shareholders fell to USD495 million, or USD1.05/share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from USD964 million, or USD1.87/share, a year earlier.
Operating revenue fell 26.3% to USD15.71 billion in the quarter. Up to Monday's close of USD59.82, Valero's New York-listed shares have fallen 15.4% this year, while the S&P 500 oil & gas refining & marketing sub-index has fallen 13.3% over the same period.
As MRC informed earlier, Valero Energy Corp.’s previously-announced USD700 million methanol plant, planned at its existing St. Charles Parish, LA, facility, has been shelved indefinitely. The methanol plant, announced in 2013 would have produced 1.6 million tons/year of methanol, tapping low-cost natural gas from the nearby Eagle Ford Shale and other basins to make a wide range of products, including paints, solvents, plastics and other consumer goods.
Valero Energy Corporation is a Fortune 500 international manufacturer and a marketer of transportation fuels, other petrochemical products, and power. It is based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. The company owns and operates 16 refineries throughout the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and the Caribbean with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3 million barrels (480,000 m3) per day, 10 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.2 billion US gallons (4,500,000 m3) per year, and a 50 megawatt wind farm.
MRC