Recently in Refining Category

February is shaping up nicely for US Midwest refiners, who are enjoying robust margins courtesy of another Brent/WTI spread blowout.

The Midwest WTI cracking margin averaged $21.82/barrel the first six business days of the month, up from a January average of $15.17/b, according to Platts data and Turner, Mason & Co. yield formulas.

It's the Lunar New Year in China, which marks the start of the zodiac Year of the Dragon. And 2012 will be another year that the world will again focus on China and actions to be taken by world's second largest oil consumer.

So given the importance of the number eight in Chinese culture, here are eight areas of focus for China's energy demand for 2012.

The National Petrochemical & Refiners Association officially changed its name today, to American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers. In its presentation to a group of the Washington energy community, and the press, the "manufacturing" aspect of this was uppermost.

That makes a great deal of sense. With so much national policy aimed at boosting the manufacturing sector, why not look to be part of it? Especially when your product, as has been widely reported, was the largest export for the US, by dollar value, in 2011.

When US refiners release fourth quarter earnings in a couple weeks it's going to be ugly. That point was driven home today when Hovensa, the joint Hess-PDVSA refinery in St. Croix, said it was joining a list of other East Coast refineries in shutting its doors.

For the refinery business as a whole, a string of losses are expected as big discounts for WTI-priced crudes were erased during an already weak period.

There are six refineries in the world better than all the others.

That's the conclusion of Solomon Associates, which has an ongoing benchmarking of the world's refineries determined by a variety of tests on operational and financial performance. Those benchmarks include Solomon's Energy Intensity Index, a cost efficency index, measures of operating efficiency and the refinery's return on investment.

The ongoing decline in US reliance on the rest of the world for its petroleum needs continued apace in August, the latest month for which figures are available.

We've written before on The Barrel about the revival of rail transportation of crude. It's been made possible largely by the blown out spread between Brent and WTI. It means that crude out of the Bakken that would otherwise go by pipeline to the depressed market of Cushing, Oklahoma, can instead profitably assume the burden of rail transportation costs and go to the US Gulf Coast. Or California.

Or apparently anywhere.

Sunoco's recent move to exit refining and be completely immersed in the retail fuels market wasn't all that surprising to people already in the retail sector in the US. It's going gangbusters, as Leslie Moore-Mirra discusses in this week's Petrodollars column from Platts Oilgram News.

European refiners, that most endangered of species, are facing up to the realities of the markets they serve with an increasing sense of despair, it seems.

At a recent conference on European refining markets, organized by Platts, the scale of the fears gripping the sector were really brought to light with one senior figure from an Italian independent refiner daring to think the hitherto unthinkable.

Companies make decisions on operating multi-million dollar facilities in the long-term, so ConocoPhillips' announcement today that it is looking to find a buyer for its Trainer, Pennsylvania refinery -- with closure an option if a buyer isn't found -- clearly wasn't just cooked up in the past few days.