U.S. crude, fuel stockpiles fall in tight market

U.S. crude oil and fuel stockpiles fell last week, as demand continued to outstrip supply, with commercial crude inventories drawing down even as more strategic reserves entered the market, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

Crude inventories fell by 5.1 MM barrels in the week to May 27 to 414.7 MM barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.3 MM-barrel drop. The fall comes even though the U.S. government released more than 5 million barrels of reserves in the most recent week and as net crude imports rose by 83,000 bpd, the EIA said.

Refining runs fell by 236,000 bpd last week, the EIA said, dropping the overall utilization rate 0.6 percentage point to 92.6% nationwide, which is still seasonally strong, as the United States moves into peak summer driving season.

"Gasoline inventories showed a draw as implied demand kicked higher, despite record prices at the pump, while distillate inventories showed a minor draw too amid a tick higher in implied demand," said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst, Americas, at Kpler.

U.S. gasoline stocks were only marginally lower, declining by 711,000 barrels in the week, while distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, dipped by 530,000 barrels.

Distillate stocks remain at all-time lows on the U.S. East Coast, which has few refineries and depends on transit from other parts of the United States and foreign imports. Refining use on the East Coast is running at more than 98%, highest in nearly four years.

Oil prices moved up after the data, with U.S. crude gaining USD1.13, or 1%, to USD116.38 a barrel, and Brent up 96 cents to USD117.27 a barrel as of 11:32 a.m. EDT (1532 GMT).

As per MRC, refiners worldwide are struggling to meet global demand for diesel and gasoline, exacerbating high prices and aggravating shortages from big consumers like the United States and Brazil to smaller countries like war-ravaged Ukraine and Sri Lanka. World fuel demand has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, but the combination of pandemic closures, sanctions on Russia and export quotas in China are straining refiners' ability to meet demand. China and Russia are two of the three biggest refining countries, after the United States. All three are below peak processing levels, undermining the effort by world governments to lower prices by releasing crude oil from reserves.
mrchub.com

МОСКВА (MRC) -- Technip Energies has been selected by IVERSON eFuels AS, a Special Purpose Vehicle between CIP, Hy2gen and Trafigura, to perform the engineering design of a complete green ammonia plant at Sauda, Rogaland, Norway, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The phase 1 of the project includes a green ammonia plant including utilities, offsites and electrical substation connected to the existing power grid, and pipeline, ammonia storage and offloading system.

The planned green ammonia production will be used as fuel for the maritime sector. The Iverson project will have an initial electrolysis capacity of 300 megawatts to produce 600 metric tons of green ammonia per day.

IVERSON eFuels AS targets with a significant scale up production in the future.

Laure Mandrou, Senior Vice-President Carbon-Free Solutions at Technip Energies, commented: “We are proud to have been selected by IVERSON eFuels AS for this ambitious Green Ammonia production project. We will support IVERSON eFuels AS thanks to our innovative mindset, our performance excellence and our unique track record to ensure this first-class project is a success. We are committed to leverage our integration and design expertise to engineer the carbon-free energy future."

Green Ammonia is expected to be used as a climate-neutral fuel, especially in the maritime industry and for climate-neutral power production.

As per MRC, Technip Energies and Alterra Energy have now entered into a global joint development and collaboration agreement to integrate Technip Energies’ pyrolysis oil purification technology with Alterra’s commercially available liquefaction process technology. By integrating both their proprietary processes, the two companies aim to accelerate the adoption of recycled feedstock, thus improving circular economy solutions for the global petrochemical industry. The combination of advanced recycling and purification technologies will enable more efficient processing and reuse of hard-to-recycle plastic.

As per MRC, TechnipFMC announced the launch of the placement of 16 million Technip Energies shares, representing ca. 9% of Technip Energies’ issued and outstanding share capital, through a private placement by way of an accelerated bookbuild offering. Upon completion of the Placement, TechnipFMC would retain a direct stake of ca. 22% of Technip Energies’ issued and outstanding share capital.
mrchub.com

Slovakia's sole oil refiner Slovnaft, a unit of Hungary's MOL, said that planned sanctions on Russian oil would in their current form ban oil product exports after 8 months from Slovnaft to its key markets in central Europe such as the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

A forced reduction in output at the 124,000 bpd refinery will cut refining below the technological minimum, making it also impossible to supply the domestic market, the refiner said in an emailed comment.

We remind, Linde Engineering announced it has been selected by Slovnaft, a member of the MOL Group, a leading integrated Central Eastern European oil and gas corporation, to conduct a complex large-scale revamp of a polypropylene (PP3) plant in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Slovnaft is a crude oil refining enterprise located in Bratislava, Slovakia. The maximum annual refining capacity is 6 million tons of crude oil, which is primarily supplied via the "Druzhba" pipeline. The dominating place in the production portfolio belongs to motor fuel (about 4.5 million tons/year), chemicals (200 thousand tons/year) and primary plastic materials (400 thousand tons/year).
mrchub.com

The TPC Group announced Wednesday it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company said it's a voluntary move that should strengthen its finances and make them more competitive, said the company.

This bankruptcy filing comes two-and-a-half years after explosions rocked the company's Port Neches plant damaging hundreds of homes and businesses.

TPC has entered into a restructuring support agreement with lenders and equity sponsors that provides for capital to fund operations, including: USD450 million in connection with two rights offerings and USD350 million in exit notes; a USD323 million delayed draw debtor-in-possession financing facility that includes up to USD85 million of new money to support the operations and help fund the restructuring; a USD200 million asset-based revolving debtor-in-possession facility.

TPC expects the restructuring to remove over USD950 million of the approximately USD1.3 billion of secured funded debt currently on its balance sheet.

In February, TPC announced that it had entered into a forbearance agreement with its lenders after failing to make interest payments.

As per MRC, The Polyolefins Company (TPC) has decided not to shut its low density polyethylene (LDPE) plant in Jurong Island, Singapore in mid-July 2021 for maintenance. The turnaround at this plant with a capacity of 260,000 mt/year of LDPE was initially expected to last for 45 days. TPC last conducted maintenance at its LDPE plant in Jurong Island in July 2018.
mrchub.com

Elise H. Nowee has been named President Shell Catalysts & Technologies (SC&T) effective July 1, 2022, said the company.

She will succeed Andy Gosse who has served in the role since 2018. Nowee will be based in the Netherlands and report to Yuri Sebregts, Executive Vice President Technology for Shell.

"Elise has global experience leading teams and businesses during challenging times and volatile markets. She has a long track record of growing a variety of businesses across Shell while also strengthening business operational excellence using an End-to-End approach.,” says Sebregts. “Her insights and knowledge will be valuable as SC&T continues the journey supporting the needs of customers and the industry through the energy transition."

SC&T is at the forefront of developing new services and technologies for the energy and petrochemical industries. This includes advanced catalysts for refining and petrochemicals, as well as licensing and technical services to support these technologies and solutions. SC&T is committed to enabling the industry to provide more and cleaner energy solutions for today and the future.

Since joining Shell nearly 30 years ago as a chemical engineer in the Pernis Refinery in the Netherlands, Nowee has held leadership positions in regional and global teams in manufacturing, commercial, sales, economic optimisation, oil-chemical integration, Joint-Ventures and supply chain management. Currently she serves as General Manager for the Lubricants Supply Chain organisation in Europe, Middle East and Africa, an organisation that produces 4,500 types of lubricants that are supplied to customers in more than 75 countries. Before this, Nowee held the position of Regional Base Chemicals and Global Base Oils Manager.

As per MRC, Shell Overseas Investments B.V. and B.V. Dordtsche Petroleum Maatschappij, subsidiaries of Shell plc, have completed the sale of Shell Neft LLC, Shell’s retail stations and lubricants business in Russia, to PJSC LUKOIL.
This follows the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. The sale agreement was announced on May 12, 2022. All people currently working for Shell Neft, more than 350 in total, will remain employed by Shell Neft, which is now owned by LUKOIL.

In addition, Shell in its reporting for the first quarter of 2022 recognized the cost of leaving Russian assets at USD 3.9 billion after taxes. Earlier, she informed that the losses could amount to USD 4-5 billion.

Shell is a British-Dutch oil and gas concern engaged in the extraction, processing and marketing of hydrocarbons in more than 70 countries.
mrchub.com