DOE/Weekly Refinery Report

US crude oil inventories declined ▼ 3.4 MMB/d to 410 MMB/d for the week ended March 25, the DOE said this morning. The American Petroleum Institute had predicted crude stockpiles fell ▼ 3 MMB/d for that week while analysts expected inventories to decline ▼ by between 1 MMB/d and 1.6 MMB/d. Gasoline inventories ticked up ▲ 785 kbd to 238.8 MMB/d for the March 25 week, the energy agency said. API had forecast a decline ▼ of 1.4 MMB/d for that week. Inventories of distillate rose ▲ 1.4 MMB/d to 113.5 MMB/d. This week’s gain reversed last week’s fall ▼ in distillate inventories. US refinery runs rose ▲ 35 kbd to 15.9 mbd for the week ended March 25, DOE said. As spring maintenance projects across the US continued across the US for the week ended Mar 25, offline CDU capacity was about 3% less ▼ than predicted by IIR Energy. FCCU outages, on the other hand, were 25% higher ▲ than expected while Hydrocracker outages came in as predicted. Viewed from another vantage, week-over-week changes, CDU and FCCU outages increased compared to the week ended Mar 18 while offline Hydrocracker capacity remained flat.

PADD-1: Planned turnarounds continued at the American Refining Group’s Bradford Refinery and United Refining’s Warren refineries, keeping CDU offline capacity steady, as predicted. The maintenance work at the Bradford refinery is winding down. FCCU offline capacity in this region stems from the Warren turnaround.

PADD-2: The completion of a planned turnaround at Phillips 66’s Ponca City Refinery lowered offline CDU capacity. But IIR Energy recently confirmed that a planned turnaround began at the ExxonMobil Joliet Refinery. CVR Energy continued its planned turnaround at its Wynnewood Refinery. Both offline events cut into gasoline production in this region.

PADD-3: Offline CDU capacity came in as predicted, as an unplanned outage at ExxonMobil’s Baytown Refinery continued, as did a planned turnaround at WRB Refining’s Borger Refinery. Gasoline production also came in as expected, with planned outages continuing at the Borger and ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge Refinery. The lengthy unscheduled outage continued at Chevron’s Pasadena Refinery. All offline Hydrocracker capacity in this region was attributed to an unplanned outage at Marathon’s Garyville Refinery, which experienced a fire in late February.

PADD-4: Maintenance work was completed sooner than expected on both CDU units of Suncor Energy’s Denver Refinery. FCCU outages were as predicted, with a scheduled turnaround continuing at Phillips 66’s Billings Refinery.

PADD-5: CDU outages were as predicted. FCCU offline capacity was higher than expected due to an unplanned outage at Torrance Refining’s Torrance Refinery. The scheduled turnaround at Marathon’s Los Angeles Carson Refinery continued.

Looking ahead to the week ending April 1, IIR Energy is expecting little change in offline capacity for CDUs, FCCUs, and Hydrocrackers.