Baby Break it Down, Part 2 - Refineries' Options for Dealing with Extraordinary Times

Sharply declining refinery demand for crude oil was a key driver in the historic collapse in near-term futures prices for WTI at Cushing earlier this week. With stay-at-home directives in place in most of the industrialized world, U.S. — and global — demand for motor gasoline and jet fuel has plummeted to levels not seen in decades. These changes in refined-products demand, which may continue for months, already are having significant impacts on U.S. refineries — not just in how much crude oil they need but in operators’ decisions on whether to adjust their crude slates and ramp down or alter their operations. Their urgent challenge is to revise their yields to something close to the appropriate volumes of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Today, we begin a blog series on the U.S. refining sector and what refiners can — and can’t — do to adapt to these extraordinary times.

COVID-19 has created a number of challenges across the energy value chain, including lower demand for motor gasoline and jet fuel and, subsequently, surplus crude oil. However, even with diminished demand, the facilities that produce and process these fuels have to keep operating at some level, as do petrochemical plants. Workers in the energy industry are considered essential due to the importance of having fuel available to power vehicles and manufacturing facilities, natural gas to enable continued operation of power industries, and logistical infrastructure to ensure that feedstock supply can make it to processing facilities and eventually consumers. Given the need for round-the-clock operations, COVID-related social distancing measures have presented a unique challenge for refinery and petrochemical facilities. To maintain adequate staffing while protecting personnel from the coronavirus, these facilities have been making major adjustments. If, as we all hope, things begin moving back toward “normal” in the coming months and refinery and petchem utilization ramps up, these efforts to keep workers safe will only gain in significance. Today, we discuss staffing issues in these key industry sectors during the pandemic.

More than a decade ago, several U.S. refiners brought new hydrocracking capacity online, wagering that rising demand for middle distillates made such major investments necessary. They were good bets. Demand for jet fuel is expected to continue to grow, and while diesel demand is seen as relatively flat in the U.S. over the next few years, it will continue to climb globally through 2045, according to RBN’s recently released Future of Fuels report. In contrast, the report also sees domestic gasoline demand declines accelerating post-2026 and peaking globally by about 2030, as more consumers turn to electric vehicles (EVs). These contrasting trajectories for middle distillates vs. gasoline will put a growing premium on distillate-centric hydrocracking capacity. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll examine trends incentivizing hydrocracking capacity and how these units will allow U.S. refiners to maintain their competitiveness in a rapidly changing product market.