LETTER FROM AMERICA

摘要

According to a Bloomberg report in May 2020: who needs a loss-making, inflexible oil refinery in a world where demand for petroleum has been obliterated? We are about to find out. When the consumption of transport fuels collapsed this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, much of the industry moved into survival mode, cutting processing rates and even temporarily stopping refining in some cases. While that helped prop up the industry's margins for a while, a combination of rising crude costs and still-weak end-user demand are starting to bite. "Many refiners will limp through the next one to two years to see what happens to demand recovery," said Steve Sawyer, Director of Refining at FGE. It seems likely that many of the weaker plants will be permanently closed." In recent weeks, Americas refiners responded to the downturn by slashing rates to a minimum and idling some gasoline-making units. The devastation that COVID-19 has wrought on demand "is not over yet," Tom Nimbley, CEO at PBF Energy, said on a 15 May earnings call, even as USA gasoline demand was showing signs of recovery. PBF is running its six refineries at minimum rates.