Posts for Ticker ‘VLR’

Are Refiners Coming Back? (VLO, MRO, TSO, RDS, XOM)

Tx00338coilwellgusherodessatexasp_2Oil refiners have had a very tough year. Since January, Marathon’s (NYSE:MRO) stock is off nearly 30%, Valero (NYSE:VLO) has plunged more than 50%, and Tesoro (NYSE:TSO) is off more than 60%. All got a bit of a boost yesterday as a result of the approaching hurricane and refinery shutdowns caused by the storm. Valero’s Port Arthur refinery (325,000 b/d), Shell’s (NYSE:RDS.A/RDS.B) Motiva refinery in Port Arthur  (285,000 b/d), and Exxon’s (NYSE:XOM) Beaumont refinery (349,000 b/d) plan to shutter operations today. But the outlook could be stronger and longer term than that.

The Energy Information Agency’s weekly status report showed that commercial stocks of crude oil are down 6.7% from the same time last year, and 1.9% from a week earlier. Total gasoline inventories are also lower than last year by 3.5%. Refinery utilization was down to 78.3%.

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