Economics
Wholesale California gasoline prices plunge, consumers still pay up
Wholesale gasoline in California became the cheapest in the country this week, but that change has largely gone unseen at the pump, where consumers still pay the highest prices in the continental United States to fill up their cars.
Oil rally to resume later this year, demand to offset glut
Oil analysts still expect a rise in the crude price this year, thanks to improving demand growth that should help offset any bearish headwinds from a stubborn supply surplus.
Brazil's Petrobras in talks to sell petrochemical assets to Mexico's Alpek
Petrobras is in exclusive talks for 60 days with Mexico's Alpek over the potential sale of PetroquimicaSuape and Citepe assets in Brazil's northeast.
Oil steadies just above three-month lows on oversupply
Oil prices steadied just above three-month lows as producers continued to pump more than needed, filling inventories, and economic growth prospects darkened.
Oil falls towards $44, lowest since May, on glut worries
Oil hit its lowest since May, falling towards $44/bl, pressured by concerns that a long-awaited rebalancing of the market would be delayed due to excess supply.
Refiner Valero's profit beats but margins stay under pressure
US refiner Valero Energy Corp. reported a quarterly profit that beat analysts' reduced estimates, even as the company's refining margin continued to be gutted by a spike in gasoline and distillate inventories.
As market sours, ships carrying LPG anchor off Singapore
After a flood of US exports into the region, the Asian market is awash with LPG and supplies are being stored in ships anchored off Singapore.
An operations reference model for common refinery operations
Refineries are large, highly automated, complex systems involving hundreds of people, thousands of work processes, thousands of control loops and tens of thousands of input/output points.
Industry Metrics
The impact of Canadian and French refinery outages caused margins to fall slightly in the Atlantic Basin and Europe, despite stronger gasoline demand and higher inventories.
Business Trends: Asia’s smaller downstream players have big plans
Most of the focus on Asian downstream capacity construction revolves around large consuming nations, such as China and India.
- Hunt Refining's Tuscaloosa refinery (U.S.) expedites maintenance, repairs on fire-damaged coker unit 5/23
- SIBUR-Sinopec's Amur GCC expects to produce first polyethylene in Q3 2026 5/23
- Phillips 66's Los Angeles (U.S.) refinery layoffs to begin in December, sources say 5/23
- Nigeria's Dangote refinery agrees to export polypropylene with Vinmar 5/23
- ExxonMobil Joliet refinery (U.S.) running unit at reduced rate 5/23
- Suncor reports flare replacement project at the Montreal refinery in coming weeks 5/23
