Refining Week, April 24th 2015

The combination of sanctions and low oil prices is making life difficult for those Russian companies that want to upgrade their refineries.

Contrary to popular belief however, the projects are continuing, as the news flow shows. Afipisky is the latest example. CB&I Awarded Contract for Afipsky Oil Refinery Project.

I suspect that progress will be slower than expected overall, but there has been no news of cancellations yet.

Refining Week, April 17th 2015

The most important news of the week, comes from Total. They plan to convert their Provence Refinery to a biofuel plant by the end of next year, and to upgrade their Donges Refinery.

It is interesting that despite high refinery margins, restructuring continues.

In Iraq, ISIS once again attacked the country's largest refinery.

SOCAR announced that part of its Eurobonds' proceeds, an amount of $500 million has been used for Star Refinery Project in Turkey. Like many such projects this one has been delayed a number of times

The strike has still not been resolved in the USA, with workers at Marathon's Texas City Refinery and at Lyondell Basell's Houston Refinery, rejecting offers from their employers

Refining Week, April 10th 2015

Here is the main news from the sector this week:

Gazprom Neft and Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (Petrovietnam) have signed an agreement to become partners in the Dung Quat Refinery, Vietnam's only operational plant.

TonenGeneral Group to Optimize Kawasaki Refinery by reducing its capacity by 10,000 barrels per day. Last year the capacity was reduced by 67,000 bpd.

There are reports that YASREF, the new refinery in Saudi Arabia, has started exports of Petrocoke.

The Tema Refinery in Ghana has been shut due to mechanical fault at its and it will be closed for around a month.

The USW strike has come to an end at the Catlettsburg Refinery 

In Indonesia, Pertamina announced that Plaju Refinery would only run local crudes, meaning that it will run at half capacity.