Category: Nieuws

The five largest Western oil firms announced nearly $200 billion in profits after the Ukraine war sent energy prices soaring. As China reopens, oil demand is likely to stay strong, alongside calls for windfall taxes.

Financial markets were stunned in April 2020 when the price of oil turned negative for the first time ever. As demand plummeted during the first COVID lockdown, the main US oil benchmark price fell to minus $30 (minus €28) a barrel.

Naysayers said prices would never recover. They warned that big oil’s days were numbered and the end of the hydrocarbon era was nigh. While they are correct about the direction of travel, their timing was way off.

The same five Western oil giants — ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP and Total — who made huge losses in 2020, have just collectively announced more than $196 billion in annual profits, helped on by a spike in oil demand caused by the Ukraine war and the post-pandemic recovery.

For much of the first half of last year, the oil price surpassed $100 and in March, Brent crude hit $139 a barrel. For the remainder of the year, it settled between $70 and $95 — much higher than the $40 to $50 needed for oil majors to make profits.

Exxon’s profit in 2022 was a record not just for itself but for any US or European oil giant. BP’s $28 billion profit was the highest in its 114-year history, while Shell made more than double the profit it made in the previous year.

As well as soaring oil prices, falling debt levels helped the oil majors to increase capital spending on fossil fuel production as governments prioritized energy security due to the supply shock caused by Western sanctions on Moscow and the Kremlin’s inconsistent energy supplies to Europe after the invasion of Ukraine.

BP CEO Bernard Looney was denounced by the green lobby when he said he wanted to “dial back” some of the energy giant’s investments in renewable energies due to the risk of oil and gas supply shortages causing more price volatility.

Contempt for ‘dirty’ cash cows

Public anger at Big Oil’s announcements of record profits is visceral, not only due to the urgent green energy push.

Over the last year, households and businesses have been hit hard by skyrocketing utility bills and the price of gasoline. While many governments have tried to limit the damage with subsidies, many see Big Oil as profiteering from public misery, so calls for windfall taxes on profits are growing louder.

The UK and the European Union have already imposed temporary levies on oil and gas sector profits. Politicians and unions have called for those to be increased. In their results updates, Shell, Total and BP revealed that the new taxes would cost them each about $2 billion — about 5% to 8% of profits.

ExxonMobil, meanwhile, is suing the EU to get the bloc to scrap its new windfall tax. The US’s largest oil firm argues that Brussels has exceeded its authority by imposing the levy, which it says is normally a role for national governments.

Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton said in December that the tax would “undermine investor confidence, discourage investment and increase reliance on imported energy.”

Biden urges tax hikes for oil majors

US President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address this week to call for energy giants to be squeezed further, demanding a quadrupling of taxes paid on share buybacks.

“When I talked to a couple of [energy companies], they said, ‘We are afraid you are going to shut down all the oil refineries anyway, so why should we invest in them?’ We are going to need oil for at least another decade,” Biden told Congress. “Instead, they used those record profits to buy back their own stock, rewarding their CEOs and shareholders. Corporations ought to do the right thing.”

The top Western oil companies paid out a record $110 billion in dividends and share repurchases to investors in 2022, according to a tally by Reuters news agency.

Oil giants have slashed their longer-term investments in recent years, partly after the US shale oil bust of the last decade but also after nursing heavy pandemic losses. With an ever-uncertain future due to the green energy transition, reticence remains over major capital spending.

China reopening to fuel demand

More pain could be on the way for consumers and businesses as China reopens after a 3-year zero-COVID policy, further fueling demand for oil while boosting Big Oil’s profits further still.

Although oil prices are not expected to reach their July 2008 all-time high of $150 a barrel anytime soon, some analysts predict the price could reach $100 again later this year — before a recession or downturn hits major economies and stalls demand.

In its latest oil market forecast published Tuesday, the Oxford Energy Institute said that oil prices would reach $95.7 a barrel, partly as a result of demand from Asia’s powerhouse economy. Goldman Sachs sees prices returning to $100 by December.

Russia said this week it planned to cut production by half a million barrels a day from next month, a move that sent prices higher. Moscow blamed the move on Western oil sanctions, including a European Union price cap of $60 on Russian crude oil. The Kremlin has so far diverted the oil it used to send to Europe to China and India, albeit at a 30% discount.

A further sign of strong oil demand came this week from Barclays Capital which forecast even higher profits for the oil majors. It set a share price target of 10 pounds ($12, €11.29) for BP, a near doubling from its Friday price of 5.61 pounds.

The Indian Express by Nik Martin, February 14, 2023

The fact that Bangladesh has no second oil refinery is a mystery that has been plaguing energy experts for more than half a century. The country’s lone refinery was set up in pre-independence era.

While the country’s economy has grown to a nearly half a trillion-dollar size and demand for oil-based products has grown by leaps and bounds, Bangladesh remains hamstrung by its lack of capacity to refine the oil it needs to sustain the economy from a self-reliance point of view.

People seem to have developed a false notion that imported goods are better than those produced in the country. While the rest of the world has moved decisively to secure energy sources as a matter of national priority and security, Bangladesh has moved in the opposite direction.

Today, the common people have to bear the brunt of these self-destructive policies.

Going by reports published in domestic media over the years, the sole refinery continues to be overhauled and despite being done so some ten times or so, there is a limit to how long it can continue operating.

Indeed, industry insiders are unanimous that the failure to build crude-refining capacity in the country since independence has meant that the national exchequer has had to dish out millions in foreign exchange to import refined oil from foreign markets.

Why? The answer is plain to see. Commissions are paid, hefty profits are made – all to the detriment not only to the government purse but also to fatten up both State entities and private parties involved in the trade.

So much has happened in terms of growth. Today, there is a vibrant transport sector, agriculture has moved to a stage when Bangladesh is arguably self-reliant in food, industry today employs millions of people and the country has become the second largest exporter of apparels.

Ceramics, construction, pharmaceuticals, ship-building, all are coming of age slowly. Everything needs one form of energy or other, and Bangladesh is increasingly becoming a nation of import-only energy, which has exposed its soft belly after the Russo-Ukrainian war erupted.

While smart countries like China, India and even a number of nations in the EU have (or used to until very recently) snapped up Russian crude oil at extremely competitive prices to refine the same in their respective countries, Bangladesh was left high-and-dry because of both a lack of vision and to serve the purpose of self-seeking businesses.

It is evident, from a report published in this newspaper on February 8, the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) “imported around 3.30 tonnes of refined and crude oils combined during fiscal year 2001-02 at a total cost of around Tk38.13 billion.

After one decade, during FY2010-11, the corporation imported a total of 4.90 million tonnes of refined and crude oils combined, of which 3.50 million tonnes are refined and 1.40 million tonnes crude. The aggregate cost was around Tk276.62 billion.”

As the country fast forwarded to FY2020-21, we have both public and private sector imports of oil, and the import cost has ballooned to stupendous amounts. Procastination at the policy level coupled with pressure from vested interests in the private sector that have been milking the national exchequer for decades seem to have all been loathe to allow space for a 2nd refinery to be set up.

The facts speak for themselves. Today, the BPC imports 4.15 million tonnes of refined oil which carries a price tag of around Tk220 billion ($2.0 billion approximately).

Things started to look up when a French company Technip was contracted to design and build a 2nd refinery.

Things unfortunately went sour after a few years had been wasted. Whatever the reason, Technip had carried out the front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the new refinery. The question is why it had taken several years for negotiations and why an unsolicited deal took so long to conclude.

Why did it take the BPC years to come to the conclusion that terms set by Technip were not suitable? One would think that given the increasingly desperate situation the country faces in terms of sourcing adequate energy by the economy, the unsolicited deal would have been expedited at record speed.

Since, so many such unsolicited deals have been made at record speed in the past, what could have held this one up for so many years?

Now that the company has left, the country is back to square one. While India and China have literally saved billions of dollars by picking up millions of barrels of Russian crude oil (at discounted prices) since the war in Europe began, Bangladesh continues to limp along with news of buying the odd cargo of LNG every now and then, while the economy continues to contract.

The case of failure to build and commission the 2nd refinery can be a bitter lesson of wilfully handing over its national energy needs to foreign powers. It would make a fine case study about a lack of negotiation skills and a lack of contracts management knowledge which together can deal a crippling blow to an economy.

The Financial Express by Syed Mansur Hashim, February 14, 2023

Marathon Petroleum Corp (MPC.N) on Tuesday beat Wall Street expectations for quarterly profit as its margins soared amid tight supplies and high demand for refined products.

The top U.S. refiner also approved an additional $5 billion in stock repurchases, while rival Phillips 66 (PSX.N) returned $1.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks during the reported quarter.

Shares of Phillips 66 fell 5.4% after it missed analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit, while Marathon rose 1%.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has criticized oil firms for pouring cash into shareholder payouts rather than significantly investing in more refining capacity despite short supply.

Marathon’s crude capacity utilization was about 94% in the fourth quarter, resulting in total throughput of 2.9 million barrels per day (bpd), which was roughly flat year-over-year.

It expects lower first quarter crude throughput volumes of roughly 2.5 million barrels per day, representing 88% utilization, due to higher turnaround activity in the first half of 2023.

The company’s refining and marketing margins surged 81.5% to $28.82 per barrel compared with last year.

Marathon had a 109% margin capture rate – the rate of realized margins rather than benchmark margins – this quarter, and expects to move towards an average of 100% in coming quarters, in part by optimizing fuel production during maintenance periods.

“We have meaningfully changed the way we go to market from a commercial perspective throughout our entire company,” said Rick Hessling, Marathon’s senior vice president of global feedstocks, on Tuesday’s first quarter earnings call.

Realized refining margins for Phillips 66 jumped 65% to $19.73 per barrel.

“Refining margins (for Phillips) were weaker than forecast in the Atlantic Basin and West Coast, driving the earnings miss,” said Jason Gabelman, analyst, Cowen and Co.

Profits last year from turning oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel hit multi-decade highs as refineries ran at full throttle to meet rising demand amid a supply squeeze following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and plant closings.

The shortage of diesel inventories and the EU ban should continue to support refining margins, according to Marathon’s Hessling.

Findlay, Ohio-based Marathon posted fourth-quarter adjusted net income of $6.65 per share compared with analysts’ average estimate of $5.67 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

Phillips 66 reported an adjusted income of $4 per share, compared with analysts’ expectations of $4.35 per share.

“While (Phillips 66’s) total cash return for the quarter was above our estimate, it still falls short of the company’s goal of returning 40% of operating cash flow,” said Faisal Hersi, analyst at Edward Jones.

Reuters by Arunima Kumar February 7, 2023

The biggest U.S. refiners expect refining margins to remain strong this year and into 2024, on the back of the EU ban on seaborne imports of Russian fuel and a rebound in Chinese demand, executives said on the earnings calls this week.

The EU will ban—effective February 5—seaborne imports of Russian refined oil products and around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian diesel, naphtha, and other fuels need to find a home elsewhere if Moscow wants to continue getting money for those products.  

“Uncertainties remain around the pace and impact of China’s recovery, the magnitude of a potential US or global recession, and the impact of Russian product sanctions. But despite these unknowns, we believe that the current supply constraints and growing demand will support strong refining margins in ’23,” Marathon Petroleum’s CEO Mike Hennigan said on Tuesday.

“Given the dynamic nature of the situation in Russia, that supply assurance component is really a big unknown, but we feel well — very well positioned to take advantage of that, given our position in the Atlantic basin,” said Brian Partee, Senior Vice President, Global Clean Products Value Chain.

ExxonMobil’s CEO Darren Woods said that “If demand picks up, economies continue to grow, we’re going to see that tightness manifest itself in continued high refining margins, which I think will mean fairly high margins this year and potentially going into 2024 as well.”

The EU sanctions on Russian fuel imports are bullish for U.S. refining margins, although the timeline for the bullishness will likely be beyond the second quarter, due to Europe stocking up on diesel ahead of the ban, said Marathon Petroleum’s Partee.

“We’re entering the sanction period of time at really historically high levels of inventory, particularly in Europe. So, we view it as 2Q and beyond timeline perspective. But, directionally, we see it as bullish for cracks.”

OilPrice.com by Tsvetana Paraskova, February 7, 2023

2022 was a year of substantial volatility for oil markets. For example, the Brent benchmark started the year at $83 per barrel and is poised to end the year in the low $80s, but for almost six months in between, it traded at prices in the triple digits.

Geopolitical events also forced producers and consumers to make significant changes to the flow of oil around the world. For example, Russian oil that traditionally flowed to Europe was rerouted to new markets in Asia. Europe had to find new oil supplies with longer transportation times and higher costs.

Here are six key oil market takeaways for traders from 2022:

1. Renewables Can’t Replace Fossil Fuels

Europe experienced a major electricity crunch after it decided to stop buying Russian natural gas and Russian crude oil. Though the crisis is ongoing, more people are coming to understand that solar and wind power cannot be stable sources of electricity.

The question for 2023 is whether the policymakers who have been pushing to increase renewable energy production will care and/or understand the fallacies of their energy transition plans and correct these errors to ensure that consumers have affordable and reliable sources of power and heat.

2. Saudi Arabia Won’t Come to the Rescue

Despite intense pressure from the United States, OPEC+ refused to increase oil production to bring down high oil prices. The lesson for traders is that Saudi Arabia can be expected to pursue its own best interests and not those of the United States when they conflict.

After many years of low oil prices, Saudi Arabia (and its OPEC+ allies) have benefited from keeping prices higher. They have attempted to do this by restricting production even if it is uncomfortable for U.S. policymakers and consumers.

3. OPEC Can’t Come to the Rescue

Years of low oil prices took their toll on OPEC+ producers, and many are experiencing substantial declines in capacity. Most OPEC+ producers cannot produce at the level their production quotas permit, so OPEC+ quotas don’t reflect the amount of OPEC+ oil actually on the market.

This means that except for Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, OPEC+ producers are not able to increase production to push prices down. It also means that when OPEC+ cuts production quotas or increases them, only a fraction of that oil will either leave or enter the market.

4. The United States Isn’t a Swing Producer

U.S. oil producers are no longer able to pursue growth at any cost. Production takes longer to increase now than it did in 2016 and 2017. The U.S. oil industry was never a true swing producer in the global oil market because its oil industry isn’t monolithic and doesn’t act in unison, but in 2022 U.S. producers reacted sluggishly to high oil prices.

U.S. production did not reach 11.98 million bpd until August, despite several months of triple-digit prices in the spring and summer. Traders should expect slower production growth from the U.S. shale industry from now on.

5. China’s Oil Demand Is Crucial:

As economies around the world returned to pre-pandemic levels of oil demand, China stuck with zero-COVID policies that dampened its oil demand. This helped keep global demand from outpacing supply in 2022.

Even though China is relaxing these policies now, traders should not expect Chinese oil demand to suddenly return to pre-pandemic levels. China’s economy, and therefore its oil demand, is controlled by the CCP and will not necessarily follow the same patterns observed elsewhere where economic activity is not controlled centrally.

6. Developing Economies Want Russian Oil

Europe and the U.S. tried to limit Russian oil revenue with sanctions and an ill-conceived price cap scheme. These policies caused dislocation in global oil flows but did not block Russia from accessing new markets.

Russian oil that used to flow to Europe was rerouted to India—a totally new market for Russia. China increased its purchases of Russian oil. Europe is now buying more oil from the Middle East.

Even if Europe and Russia resolve their issues and resume their oil trade, Russian oil will likely continue to flow to India and other new markets. Traders should note that oil flows shifted more quickly than expected, and the period of disruption in the market was relatively brief.

Investing.com by Ellen R. Wald, January 31, 2023

Let’s first understand what liquefied natural gas (LNG) is.

LNG is the most secure and eco-friendly fossil fuel known today. Its sulfur, carbon, nitrogen, and other greenhouse gas emissions are significantly lower than coal, oil fuels, and other fossil fuels.

The importance of this green fossil fuel in the achievement of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions cannot be overemphasized, especially in the manufacturing and shipping industries. LNG is a product of natural gas and is applicable in power generation for both residential and commercial buildings, as a fuel in the transport sector, and as a cooking fuel in homes.

What is An LNG Import Terminal?

Natural gas exists naturally in natural gas reserves (on-shore or off-shore gas fields) around the world. It is produced in liquefaction plants.

As you’d expect, these liquefaction plants are in close proximity to the natural gas reserves. Upon liquefaction, LNG is shipped/exported via sea and received, stored, and re-gasified in LNG terminals. For local markets, LNG is transported to the terminals via LNG tankers. It’s from these terminals that the gas is then distributed to the end user via gas pipelines.

To meet the growing demand for liquefied natural gas, LNG investors have over the past decade pumped big bucks into the design, development, and construction of post-modern LNG terminal units.

As an example, take Joe Sigelman, AG&P CEO and chairman. Joe continues to fund the development and construction of natural gas processing plants across Asia. AG&P’s LNG terminals in the Philippines and India have dedicated import, storage, loading, and export facilities. Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, the Chairman of IndianOil Corporation, is another notable investor in the LNG sector.

Under his leadership, the company is building an LNG import terminal at Kamarajar Port that has a capacity of 20 million cubic meters per day. These huge investments underline the significance of LNG import terminals in the LNG value chain.

What Are the Key Roles of Import Terminals In LNG Distribution?

1) Berthing and unloading

LNG terminals are designed for the safe berthing and unloading of large LNG cargo ships. They have all the marine installations and loading articulated arms needed to accommodate & unload large ships of up to 350m in length.

2) LNG storage unit

The terminals either have an inbuilt regasification and storage plant or are in close proximity to one.

Upon unloading, LNG flows to the storage units through special LNG pipes that are designed to withstand temperatures as low as -160°C. The storage units are specially designed to compress and re-condense boil-off gas and send it back to LNG tankers as a way of regulating the pressure in the cargo tanks.

LNG storage tanks are flat-bottom tanks that are designed to hold LNG and maintain it in liquid form under normal atmospheric pressure (natural gas in liquid form is -160°C). The tanks are known as cryogenic tanks because of their ability to cope with the cryogenic temperature of LNG. Their outer walls are sufficiently insulated using pre-stressed reinforced concrete in order to prevent heat from penetrating into the tank and causing the liquefied gas to evaporate.

Sometimes the liquefied gas evaporates in small quantities, and that’s where the boil-off gas we mentioned earlier comes from. This is the gas that’s captured, compressed, condensed, and fed back into the LNG flow. On top of helping regulate pressure in the cargo tank, this recycling process also prevents the gas from overflowing into the atmosphere and causing the unwanted greenhouse effect.

3) Regasification

At any LNG import terminal, you’ll find equipment such as heat exchangers, underwater burners, submerged combustion vaporizers, turbines, and submerged cryogenic high-pressure pumps. These are the equipment that combines to convert liquid natural gas back to the gaseous state. The regasification process happens at a pressure of between 70-100 bars (around 80 times atmospheric pressure).

iv. Distribution

Upon vaporization at the import terminal, LNG is then treated with small amounts of Tetrahydrothiophene (THT) in order to give it an odor. Note that natural gas is odorless and that makes it undetectable and highly risky in case of leakage. THT gives it an artificial odor for easy detection. Treated LNG is then fed into a pipeline network and distributed to residential and industrial end users. Natural gas can also be compressed and distributed for use as a vehicle fuel.

Final word

If the kitchen is the heart of a home, an LNG import terminal is the heart of the entire LNG value chain. The export and import of LNG can’t happen without import terminals.

By Elliot Rodhes, January 31, 2023

Oil prices rose around 1% on Thursday after posting the biggest two-day loss for the start of a year in three decades with U.S. data showing lower fuel inventories providing support and economic concerns capping gains.

Big declines in the previous two days were driven by worries about a global recession, especially following weak short-term economic signs in the world’s two biggest oil consumers, the United States and China.

U.S. distillate inventories fell more than expected as a winter storm gripped the United States at the end of December, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed on Thursday.

U.S. gasoline stocks (USOILG=ECI) fell 346,000 barrels last week, the Energy Information Administration said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 486,000-barrel drop.​

Distillate stockpiles (USOILD=ECI), which include diesel and heating oil, fell 1.4 million barrels in the week, versus expectations for a 396,000-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.

“The impact of the storm during that time period is on full display here,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital LLC in New York.

Brent crude futures settled higher at 85 cents, or 1.1%, at $78.69 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled up 83 cents, or 1.2%, at $73.67 a barrel.

Both benchmarks’ cumulative declines of more than 9% on Tuesday and Wednesday were the biggest two-day losses at the start of a year since 1991, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

Supporting prices earlier in the session was a statement from top U.S. pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline, which said its Line 3 had been shut for unscheduled maintenance with a restart expected for the products line on Jan. 7.

Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM said the price rebound early in the session was due to the pipeline shutdown and added: “There is no doubt that the prevailing trend is down; it is a bear market.”

Reflecting near-term bearishness, the nearby contracts of the two benchmarks traded at a discount to the next month, a structure known as contango. ,

On Wednesday, figures showing U.S. manufacturing contracted further in December pressured prices, as did concerns about economic disruption as COVID-19 works its way through China, which has abruptly dropped strict curbs on travel and activity.

By The Financial Post, January 31, 2023

Russia remained China’s second-largest source of crude oil in 2022, following repeat top supplier Saudi Arabia, as Chinese refiners snapped up low-cost Russian barrels while Western countries shunned them after the Ukraine crisis.

China’s crude oil imports from Russia jumped 8% in 2022 from a year earlier to 86.25 million tonnes, equivalent to 1.72 million barrels per day (bpd), data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Friday.

Russian crude has been trading in widening discounts to global oil benchmarks following Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin has called a “special operation”.

China, which refused to condemn the attack, cranked up procurement of Russian barrels and has largely ignored the sanctions imposed by Western nations on seaborne Russian crude from Dec. 5.

In December, it brought in 6.47 million tonnes of crude oil from Russia, or 1.52 million bpd, compared to 1.7 million bpd in the same period in 2021.

China’s state-backed refiners have wound down the purchase of Russian oil since November, but the independent refineries have continued buying from intermediary traders who arrange shipping and insurance, shielding them from the risk of secondary sanctions.

Saudi Arabia shipped a total of 87.49 million tonnes of crude to China in 2022, equivalent to 1.75 million bpd, customs data showed, on par with the level in 2021.

China’s state-backed oil refiners largely fulfilled their term contracts with Saudi in 2022 despite the sluggish domestic demand.

Saudi Arabia is expected to remain a key, if not the dominant, crude exporter to China after President Xi Jinping’s visit to Riyadh in December, where he told Gulf leaders that China would work to buy oil in Chinese yuan, rather than U.S. dollars.

Customs data also showed that crude imports from Malaysia almost doubled in 2022 to 35.68 million tonnes. The Southeast Asian country is a transfer point for sanctioned shipments originating from Iran and Venezuela.

No Venezuelan crude imports were recorded by Chinese customs throughout 2022 and a total of 780,392 tonnes of crude oil from Iran arrived in China.

China is Iran’s biggest oil buyer, but most Iranian exports are rebranded as crude from other countries to evade U.S. sanctions.

Vortexa, a ship tracking specialist, assessed that China’s December imports of Iranian oil rose to a record of 1.2 million bpd, up 130% from a year earlier.

Crude shipments from the United States reached 7.89 million tonnes in 2022, down 31% year-on-year.

By Maritime Logistics Professional, January 31, 2023

U.S. oil refiners are expected to report higher fourth quarter earnings thanks to strong demand and healthy margins from processing crude oil into motor fuels, said analysts.

Profits last year from turning oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel hit multi-decades highs as plants ran full bore to meet rising travel and exports demand. Profits surged into the stratosphere for a sector that had been largely written off as the first victim of the energy transition.

Valero Energy, the second-largest U.S. refiner by capacity, kicks off earnings on Thursday with a projected per share profit of $7.19, according to Refinitiv, nearly three times the $2.47 of a year ago.

Top refiner Marathon Petroleum (MPC.N) is forecast to show a $5.70 per share profit, compared to $1.27 a year ago, while Phillips 66 could deliver a $4.46 per share, compared to $2.88 a year ago, according to Refinitiv.

Both are scheduled to report on Jan. 31.

“Refiners are tied as the best energy sub-sector in 2022,” alongside oilfield services, wrote Jason Gabelman, a research analyst at Cowen, in a recent note.

The U.S. crack spread , a measure of the profit from buying oil and selling gasoline and diesel, peaked last quarter at $45, more than double the peak in the same period last year.

The fourth quarter could far exceed pre-pandemic profits, said Tudor Pickering Holt analyst Matthew Blair. Industry profit for the quarter could average $3.95 a share, “only a hair below full-year” 2019 profit for the sector, he wrote in a note.

Results benefited from margins on diesel, a historically wide spread between light and heavy crudes, and refiners maximizing their processing last quarter, Blair said.

Margins on diesel and other distillates rose $8 per barrel, to about $58, triple the margins in the same period last year. A historically wide, about $18 per barrel, spread between light and heavy crude oil also aided refiners.

Many ran their plants at above 90% utilization rates, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and bought feedstock at lower costs, as U.S. crude futures dropped 5.7% over the prior quarter to $81.50 per barrel.

One reason diesel demand is strong: refiners are using diesel to reduce the amount of sulfur in fuel oil sold for ocean shipping.

The price difference between high- and low-sulfur fuel oil is very wide, indicating more diesel is being used to make low sulfur fuel oil, said Andrew Lipow, president of consultants Lipow Oil Associates.

The high margins may not last this year, however. Releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve have ended, reducing supplies of sour crude oil in the market.

Less Russian crude and OPEC exports could tighten heavy and light spreads, wiping away another refiner benefit.

Reuters by Laura Sanicola, January 31, 2023