RBN Energy

The cost of gasoline has garnered a lot of headlines since the start of 2022, with the blame for elevated prices falling on seemingly everything and everyone, from the Biden administration’s policies on oil exploration to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as decisions by major U.S. producers and OPEC not to swiftly boost oil production. Another can't-be-ignored culprit is the loss of significant U.S. refining capacity over the last few years, which has limited the ability of refiners to respond to the strong, post-COVID demand recovery by ramping up production. By and large, the refineries still operating have been running flat out. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the state of global refining, where new capacity is likely to be built, and the headwinds to future investment.

Refiners and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have locked horns in a dispute over Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). Now in its 10^th year, the dispute stems from contradictory premises about how RINs affect the profits of the refiners and blenders who produce the ground transportation fuels sold in the U.S. To form an opinion of what ought to happen next, you need to understand the fundamentals of how RINs work in light of the RIN being a tax and a subsidy that forces renewables into fuels. In today’s RBN blog, we focus on how RINs force renewables into fuels and address the related question: Do RINs increase the price consumers pay for gasoline?

Refining margins today — whether in the U.S. Gulf Coast (USGC), Rotterdam or Singapore — are at record highs. Given current high crude oil prices, gasoline and diesel prices at the pump everywhere are also at unprecedented levels, making refinery profits a major topic of conversation — and not just for politicians. While some of the explanations of refining margins are just political talking points, several others are well-established and accepted, and still others consider factors that are less frequently cited, even by those familiar with energy markets. One such factor is the price of natural gas and how it’s impacting refinery operations and competitiveness around the world. Today’s RBN blog discusses the crucial role natural gas prices play in refinery operating expenses and refining margins, and examines how favorable natural gas prices in the U.S. are providing a substantial competitive advantage for domestic refiners.

We often tend to focus on the U.S. refining picture, but, just like crude oil, refined products trade globally, and international closures ultimately have the same effect as domestic ones on the worldwide products market. Recent international closures have been distributed throughout the world — concentrated in developed countries, including several in Europe, as well as Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, but also in some developing economies like South Africa and Sri Lanka. Most of these capacity reductions were driven by the same forces as in the U.S., namely, poor economics as a result of the pandemic-lockdown-driven demand plunge in 2020 and 2021, as well as expectations that margins would take a long time to recover post-COVID. Of course, worries that the energy transition and policies to that end would suppress demand in the long-term also played a key role, as did some fundamental competitiveness issues at individual facilities. In today’s RBN blog, we take a closer look at the more than 2 MMb/d of international capacity closures since 2019.

Way back in 2019, just about everyone in the refining world was talking about IMO 2020, the International Maritime Organization’s soon-to-be-implemented rule requiring much lower sulfur emissions from most ocean-going ships. A lot of forecasters were anticipating that major market dislocations would result — things like $50/bbl-plus diesel crack spreads, oversupply of high-sulfur fuel oil, and ultra-wide differentials between light and heavy crude oils. They did, but only briefly, in the last few months of 2019. The implementation of IMO 2020 turned out to be pretty much a non-event, and for much of 2020 and 2021, people didn’t think much about the new bunker fuel rule. Lately, things have been changing, as we discuss in today’s RBN blog.

Refinery closures. Shifting demand for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Yawning price differentials for refined products in neighboring regions. These and other factors have spurred an ongoing reworking of the extensive U.S. products pipeline network, which transports the fuels needed to power cars, SUVs, trucks, trains and airplanes — not to mention pumps in the oil patch, tractors and lawnmowers. New products pipelines are being built and existing pipelines are being repurposed, expanded or made bidirectional, typically to take advantage of opportunities that midstreamers, refiners and marketers see opening up. In today’s RBN blog, we begin a review of major pipelines that batch gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and look at the subtle and not-so-subtle changes being made to the U.S. refined products distribution network.