Blog

Transforming Safety Culture from a Program to an Organizational Principle In today’s ever-changing downstream landscape, both operators and service providers are facing a number of varying factors, from feedstock and equipment disturbances, to regulatory and environmental variations, and market volatility caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever, it is important for companies to […]

US Refiners See High Crack Spreads, but Renewable Fuel Credits Eat into Actual Profits Recently we have seen some buzz about refining crack spreads being at favorable levels. While this appears to be true on the surface, a key component of understanding actual domestic fuels production profitability is the current value of the Renewable Volume […]

Fuels demand projected to increase, although less than 2019 The US Government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) released their take on how gasoline and diesel demand might recover in their Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO) this week. The forecast shows that gasoline demand will increase in 2021 to levels above the low set in 2020; however, […]

Vaxications, a Texas Deep Freeze, and Summer Driving Season – finally a booster shot for refining margins? Last time I wrote (January of this year) we were in the midst of the second wave of Covid-19 in many places around the world and things were not looking so great for refining margins once again. In […]

With higher refined product prices, conversion margins improve Despite a new and more severe wave of Covid-19 and its restrictions, product prices and demand have been surprisingly resilient. We have seen diesel and gasoline cracks hold up nicely over the last few weeks leading to some healthier conversion unit margins, especially at the Fluid Catalytic […]

Distillate production back in favor, but will it reverse again before the winter is over? As you may recall, I wrote about distillate pricing relative to gasoline (a large determinant of refining operating strategy) a couple months back. At that time, we had finally seen gasoline start to lift away from diesel as relentless inventory […]

As industry increasingly recognizes the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI), companies are seeking how to best fit AI into their business strategy. AI, however, is relatively young and the extensive benefits it provides demand creative solutions to unique challenges. Successfully implementing AI requires a deliberate and dedicated approach that sometimes differs from implementing more standard […]

Most complex facilities such as refineries and chemical plants utilize some type of Linear Programming (LP) software to optimize and help plan for feedstocks, unit conditions, and even future investments. These models generally optimize a system of linear equations against a set of constraints given an objective function (usually profitability). Specialized LP engineers are needed […]

The recent COVID-19 outbreak caused a major disruption to peoples’ movements around the world, resulting in a very sharp curtailment of international air travel. Demand for jet fuel, normally a high value refined product and one of the easiest products to sell, was suddenly at record lows with negative crack spreads recorded in all markets. […]