Texas: Heating Oil, Gasoline Rise on Delay of Refinery Unit Restart

Heating Oil, Gasoline Rise on Delay of Refinery Unit Restart New York, April 17 (Bloomberg) -- Heating oil and gasoline futures rose after Motiva Enterprises LLC said a unit at its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery would be closed longer than expected for repairs, reducing output of oil products.

The unit, known as a fluid catalytic cracker, could remain shut at least until late next week, the company said. The unit had been expected to reopen late this week. The unit, which has the capacity to process l83,000 barrels of oil products a day, was closed on March 29.

``Motiva could be down until early May,'' said Ric Navy, a broker at Paribas Futures Inc. in New York. Production will be reduced at a time when ``heating oil has been tight for the past couple weeks,'' he said.

Heating oil for May delivery rose as much as 2.80 cents, or 4.2 percent, to 69.20 cents a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gasoline for May delivery rose as much as 1.23 cents, or 1.5 percent, to 81.05 cents a gallon.

Also boosting prices was the closing Friday of a unit at Valero Energy Corp.'s Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery for unscheduled maintenance. The company said today it would restart that unit on Saturday.

The outages come at a time when refineries need to boost production of gasoline to meet peak demand during the summer driving season. U.S. refineries need to process an additional 1 million barrels of crude oil a day during the second quarter to meet the increased demand, the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies said today in a monthly report.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which have seen crude oil prices drop by one-fourth from a nine- year high March 8, ``should not panic. Prices will recover once refiners start buying again,'' the report said.

Crude oil for May delivery recently was up 20 cents at $25.77 a barrel on the Nymex. In London, June Brent crude was up 32 cents at $22.73 a barrel.

Heating oil prices rose 2.5 percent last week, partly on expectations for increased demand for diesel from farmers engaged in spring planting. Diesel and heating oil are similar products and often trade in tandem.

Heating Oil & Gasoline Prices Rise

-- Ain't Gonna Happen (Not Here Not@ever.com), April 17, 2000

Answers

Now on the other hand, here in Minneapolis gasoline prices are down to $129.9 for standard unleaded.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), April 17, 2000.

Vitol to shut refinery - unplanned

http://quote.bloomberg.com/news2.cgi?T=energy_refout.ht&s=AOPtefhVqUmV maW5l

-- - (x@xxx.com), April 17, 2000.

That was planned maintence.

-- - (x@xxx.com), April 17, 2000.

Energy futures rise

By Associated Press, 4/17/2000 17:31

NEW YORK (AP) Heating oil futures leaped higher Monday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, pulling other energy products up with them.

Heating oil prices rocketed 5 percent higher as distillate fuel supplies tightened with farmers filling their tractors for spring planting.

Exacerbating the distillate supply crunch were continued operating problems at an Exxon Mobil unit in Joliet, Ill. The unit, which produces 240,000 barrels a day of diesel fuel, is a main source for Midwestern farm suppliers.

May heating oil rose 3.07 cents to 69.47 cents a gallon.

Crude oil prices, meanwhile, also were buoyed by news that Motiva was delaying the restart of a 90,000-barrels-a-day gasoline-producing unit at its refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, by two to three weeks.

May crude rose 32 cents to $25.89 a barrel, May unleaded gasoline rose 2.16 cents to 81.98 cents a gallon and May natural gas rose 8 cents to $3.158 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, June Brent crude from the North Sea rose 33 cents to $22.74 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. http://www.boston.com/dailynews/108/economy/Energy_futures_rise_:.shtm l

-- - (x@xxx.com), April 17, 2000.

Published Monday, April 17, 2000

Expert: Note Natural Gas Supply

By ALAN SAYRE / AP Business Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- More attention must be paid to securing future supplies of natural gas, the fuel for nearly all of the world' s future electric power generators, a petroleum industry expert said Monday.

Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said that with most of the current attention focused on the supply, demand and price of oil, natural gas prices are going upward with a potentially hot summer season ahead and future demand for gas almost completely assured of increasing.

" There is kind of a disconnect in this country with natural gas, " Yergin told the annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. " We' re just assuming that it will be there."

Worldwide demand for natural gas will be rising sharply in the coming years, primarily because about 96 percent of planned power generation projects will be gas-fired, said Yergin, author of " The Prize, " a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry.

At the present time, no clean alternative fuel source for power generation exists, he said.

In the meantime, production is not growing significantly and most additional supplies are coming from storage. At a minimum, the petroleum industry will need to add 50 percent more gas reserves over the next decade than were found during the 1990s, Yergin said.

" Gas supply is just not growing, " he said.

While natural gas prices have taken a back seat recently to skyrocketing oil prices, the same supply-and-demand market vulnerability that hit oil could be coming to gas markets, Yergin said.

Since the first of the year, gas prices have gone from about $2.15 per 1, 000 cubic feet to $3, a price Yergin predicted would become standard. On Monday, natural gas for delivery in May closed at $3.158 per $1, 000 cubic feet.

But a hot summer this year, triggering an increased demand for power, could drive the price to $3.50 or $4, he said.

Yergin also said the petroleum industry, despite its reputation of being part of the " old economy, " is becoming one of the most technologically advanced. In 1994, for example, oil production from deep-water drilling was projected to reach 1 million barrels per day by 2005. Today, the production is about 2.5 million barrels, he said.

" There is a sense that this industry is being left behind in the new economy, " Yergin said. " This non-crisis oil crisis has been good in one sense in that it has shown the oil industry is still important."

Copyright 2000 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

) Copyright 2000. All rights reserved.

http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=8157635 0

May 00 - Natural Gas

-- - (x@xxx.com), April 17, 2000.