June 11, 2012:

Neste Oil's Naantali refinery is back in normal operation following the completion of a scheduled major maintenance turnaround. The turnaround began in April and lasted a total of around six weeks, and will help ensure the refinery's good performance for the next four to six years. "The fact that we were able to complete this major project largely on-time and on-budget is very satisfying," says Refinery Manager Elina Herrala. "I am particularly proud of our success in carrying out over 450,000 hours of work without any lost workday accidents or hot work incidents."

Around 2,000 pieces of equipment were overhauled and various process furnaces and other equipment replaced during the turnaround. The turnaround and related investment projects cost approx. EUR 60 million in all. A total of around 1,000 people took part in the turnaround, of which 700 were contractors' employees.

Neste Oil Corporation

Hanna Maula

Director, Corporate Communications

Further information:

Elina Herrala, Refinery Manager, Naantali, tel. +358 (0)50 458 6007

Neste Oil in brief

Neste Oil Corporation is a refining and marketing company concentrating on low-emission, high-quality traffic fuels. The company produces a comprehensive range of major petroleum products and is the world's leading supplier of renewable diesel. Neste Oil had net sales of EUR 15.4 billion in 2011 and employs around 5,000 people, and is listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki.  Neste Oil is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the Ethibel Pioneer Investment Register, and has featured in The Global 100 list of the world's most sustainable corporations for a number of years. Forest Footprint Disclosure (FFD) has ranked Neste Oil as one of the best performers in the oil & gas sector.

By Reuters

June 11, 2012:

Campaigners trying to save jobs at an oil refinery have staged a protest amid warnings that its closure could see more than £100 million drained from the economy. More than 100 people demonstrated outside the Coryton refinery in Essex, where almost 1,000 workers face losing their jobs.  Unite called on ministers to follow the example of the French government and give state aid to keep Coryton running until a buyer can be found.  Thurrock council has commissioned an economic impact assessment on the closure or change of use of the site, which found it would cost £30 million in wages, £26 million in contractor costs, £6 million in locally sourced materials, £40 million spent on chemicals and utilities, and £5 million in business rates.  Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke said: "The economic impact and human cost of Coryton's closure will be massive. The Government cannot continue to sit on its hands and allow livelihoods to be destroyed.  "Over £100 million could be drained from the local and national economy, as well as the UK's refining capacity being undermined. Today's protest shows that the workers, who have kept the site running, feel let down and angry by the Government's failure to intervene."

Local Labour MEP Richard Howitt said: "The Government accepts that the Thames Gateway is nationally important for economic regeneration, so must not stand by while one of its most important businesses in one of the most crucial areas goes under.  "Government representatives repeatedly told us that best efforts were being made to find a new buyer, but today's protest shows that today no one believes they were telling the truth."

By The Independent

June 11, 2012: 

Cheap western crude prices are driving the North American oil industry to find creative ways to ship oil east where refineries are struggling to remain competitive. In recent weeks, the first rail shipment of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota arrived in Saint John amid word Irving Oil Ltd. is close to reaching a deal with an American fuel broker that would involve regular shipments of oil arriving by rail.  The net savings for shipping the crude oil, after accounting for the cost of transportation, are estimated to be about $7 to $10 per barrel, according to Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst with Raymond James and Associates Inc., in Houston. "It's obviously not very cheap to ship crude from the mid-section of North America to the far reaches of Atlantic Canada, but it is cheaper than buying imported crude," he said.

The discount between Bakken oil and Brent crude, the European benchmark that east coast refineries rely on for a majority of their stock, has averaged $27.75 a barrel this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Crude oil from the Bakken oilfields is cheaper than its counterparts because it is easier to extract and to refine into lighter products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC), an independent American refiner with a network of pipelines, barges and rail operations, estimated in November that the cost of moving Bakken crude to the U.S. east coast would be about $18 a barrel. The savings bode well for both railway companies as well as east coast refineries. Last month, Imperial oil announced its Dartmouth refinery, after years of losing money, would be put on the market. "Many refineries in Eastern Canada currently import oil from offshore and the opportunity to be able to connect the growing supply of western Canadian oil with refineries and the demand in Eastern Canada is a primary objective of what the industry is trying to do," said Greg Stringham, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

"We would like to replace the foreign crude imports that are coming into that market now and they are being looked at through rail proposals as well as pipeline proposals that have been brought to the fore," he said. According to a report published this week by CAPP, the industry will continue to rely on pipelines as the dominant mode of transportation for crude oil, but in the short-term, crude oil transported by rail will increase sharply due to the ability to use rail capacity relatively quickly and in small increments as needed. In the span of just one year, rail exports from North Dakota have risen to about 225,000 barrels per day in March from 50,000 barrels per day a year earlier, according to estimates by the North Dakota Pipeline Authority. According to Statistics Canada, about 8,823 rail cars were loaded with oil and other petroleum products in March 2011, compared with 5,602 rail cars a year earlier. In addition, TransCanada Corp. recently introduced the concept of a new pipeline system to transport about 625,000 barrels per day of western Canadian crude oil across the country to Montreal and potentially further east to Saint John.

"It would be a substantial benefit to have this infrastructure program because, should it be built, it will create lasting jobs, not only in the manufacturing industry but in the oil-refining business in Saint John," said John Williamson, MP for New Brunswick Southwest.

By  Calgary Herald

June 10, 2012:

Motiva Enterprises 600,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery restored the newly commissioned 325,000 bpd crude distillation unit to production on Saturday, according to notices filed with state pollution regulators. The crude unit, which does the initial refining of crude oil coming into the refinery, has been out of production for about a week due a leaking valve that interfered with its operation.  The unit, which began production in late April, was officially commissioned on May 31 in a ceremony attended by the chief executives of Motiva's owners, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Saudi Aramco.

The 325,000 bpd crude distillation unit was the centerpiece of a five-year expansion project costing about $10 billion that more than doubled the Port Arthur plant's crude oil refining capacity making it the largest refinery in the United States.

By Reuters

June 11, 2012:

The government will set aside Rp 1 trillion (US$106.8 million) from the 2013 state budget for preparing the construction of a long-awaited new refinery in the country, a senior official revealed over the weekend.  The money would be used to conduct a comprehensive study of the best location for the refinery and how to get a sustainable supply of crude oil, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s oil and gas director general, Evita Herawati Legowo, said. “I have requested the House of Representatives to allocate funds to set up a refinery and the request has been granted,” she said.

She said the funding would come from the slot prepared for infrastructure developments, not by cutting the amount of fuel subsidies as previously suggested by the Finance Ministry’s acting fiscal policy chief Bambang Brodjonegoro. As the construction of the refinery would normally take between five and six years, the new refinery was expected to begin operations in 2019 at the latest, Evita added.  The refinery, estimated to cost Rp 90 trillion to build, would have a total processing capacity of around 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and would produce not only petroleum, but also several petrochemical products, she said. As to the crude oil supply, she said, the government was still considering all available options, including cooperating with oil companies from the Middle East, which had relatively large production.  Currently, two companies — Kuwait Petroleum and Saudi Aramco — are on the list of potential investors for building refineries. Kuwait Petroleum is interested in setting up a refinery in Balongan, near the existing refinery, in West Java, while Aramco is currently running a feasibility study in Tuban, East Java.

The progress of Kuwait Petroleum’s investment is stalled due to the government’s reluctance to grant incentives demanded by the company, which are claimed by the government to be “excessive”. Pertamina currently operates six refineries with a combined capacity of 1.03 million bpd, but they produce only 677,000 bpd of fuel products. The refineries are located in Dumai, Riau, with a capacity of 170,000 bpd, Plaju in South Sumatra (118,000 bpd), Cilacap in Central Java (348,000 bpd), Balikpapan in East Kalimantan (260,000 bpd), Balongan in West Java (125,000 bpd) and Kasim in West Papua (10,000 bpd).   The newest refinery is Balongan, which was built in 1994. Evita said the government-funded refinery would not be located in Balongan or Tuban because the government still expected the two Middle East companies to realize their investment plans. Komaidi Notonegoro, an energy expert from the ReforMiner Institute, praised the government’s move to fund the construction of the refinery from its own budget. He argued that setting up a refinery was more of a national interest rather than that of a private company.

“There are only two options: using our own money or giving incentives to private investors. Incentives are necessary because the profit margin in the downstream sector isn’t as high as in the upstream sector,” he explained. “It’s a positive move by the government; we should appreciate that,” he emphasized.

By Jakarta Post