Downstream news: 24th January 2014

USA

Texas

Alon USA Energy Inc. is to shut the crude unit at the Big Spring oil refinery at the beginning of March in order to carry out work to increase the plant’s distillate yield.

Modifications to the unit are expected to take approximately 30 days to complete.

Ohio

Lima Refining Co., which is owned by Husky Energy Inc., has purchased a three quarter of acre parcel of land at 1771 Buckeye Road for US$ 100 000.

BP Oil Pipeline Co. transferred the property to Inland Corp. on 9^th January for free, and Inland in turn sold it to Lima Refining Co. on the same day, according to Allen County Auditor’s Office records.

Kenya

Kenya’s oil refinery is old and cannot satisfy the petroleum needs of the East Africa region, according to its government.

Industry players have been complaining that the refinery is inefficient and that the sulfur content in the refined products was wanting.

This inefficiency has resulted in oil tankers having to pay huge amounts in demurrage costs, sometimes up to US$ 25 000 per day.

Kuwait

One of Kuwait’s three oil refineries was still offline on Thursday after a power cut shut all of them down on Wednesday.

The 200 000 bpd Shuaiba refinery had not yet restarted on Thursday morning, while the 460 000 bpd Mina Ahmadi and 270 000 bpd Mina Abdullah refineries are not expected back to full production until Friday.

Peru

Peru is likely to opt for Technicas Reunidas SA (TRE) for a US$ 2.7 billion contract to build an oil refinery for state owned Petroleos del Peru SA.

‘The project will start in the first quarter’, indicated Miguel Castilla, the country’s Finance Minister.

The Spanish engineering company, which has already begun designing the complex will carry out construction over three to four years.

Edited from various sources by Emma McAleavey.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/24012014/oil_and_gas_processing_news107/