Crude oil on its way from Africa to the United States, destined for
an ill-fated refinery that plans to close its doors permanently in
Pennsylvania, is being diverted to other places, according to Reuters sources.
The
335,000-barrel-per-day ,
which will close permanently on Monday, used 43.1 million barrels of
African oil last year. Only the Phillips 66 refinery in New Jersey
imported more oil from Africa.
The oil currently being diverted is
a one-million-barrel shipment of Nigerian crude oil, which is now
headed into storage in Canada, Reuters said, citing Kpler, which also
shows a million barrels of crude idling in nearby waters.
But
even more crude has been diverted away from the refinery and to new
buyers, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, and at a “heavy” discount,
Reuters added.
The United States purchased 4.1 million barrels of
Nigerian crude oil in April, the last month for which the Energy
Information Administration published data.
Pennsylvania decided
not to pour money into saving the largest refinery on the Eastern
seaboard after a couple of explosions in June took it offline.
Pennsylvania’s decision to let the refinery wither on the vine was
multifaceted, citing not just safety concerns but “competitive
challenges against more modern refineries that would be extremely costly
and difficult to overcome,” a spokesman for Pennsylvania’s governor said at the time.
The 1300-acre, 145-year-old refinery
is a near dinosaur, went through bankruptcy proceedings in 2018, citing
its financial failings due to the federal Renewable Fuels Standard
Policy and a lack of access to cheap domestic crude oil, among other
factors.
The closure of the Pennsylvania refinery will cut US refining capacity by 2% to 18.46 million bpd, according to Reuters calculations of government data.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
No comments:
Post a Comment