HollyFrontier reports unplanned outages at Kansas, Wyoming refineries

By ALISON SIDER

HollyFrontier disclosed that unplanned outages at two of its refineries will reduce its crude throughput in the second quarter by about 7.5% from what it had been expecting.

The company said fluid catalytic cracking units at its Cheyenne, Wyoming, and El Dorado, Kansas, refineries will be down for about 10 days due to unspecified operational issues.

As a result, the company is expecting it will process about 370,000 bpd of crude during the quarter, instead of the 400,000 bpd it had forecast on an earnings call earlier this month.

HollyFrontier spokeswoman Julia Heidenreich said the company felt the event was material and should be reported to shareholders.

During its first quarter earnings call, HollyFrontier CEO Michael Jennings cited unplanned downtime as a problem and said the company is aiming for "more consistency in our refinery operations."

The 47,000 bpd Cheyenne refinery had a 25 day coker outage in the first quarter as a result of a fire in January 2013, which contributed to lower processing rates and a $3 million charge.