U.S. lube oil refining capacity has slipped to 210,400 barrels per day, a decline of more than 6 percent since January 2001, and 9 percent off 1997’s peak of 231,100 b/d.
That’s according to the 2002 edition of the Lubricating Oil and Wax Capacities Report from the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.
The report, to be released at the group’s Annual Meeting in San Antonio next week, is kept close at hand by many lube executives, says ExxonMobil’s Mitch Hindman, chairman of NPRA’s statistics subcommittee. It provides a “snapshot in time” of every North American base oil refiner and rerefiner, plus a few in South America as well.
“It’s important because if you’re a player in the business, you want to be familiar with the producers,” Hindman told Lube Report earlier this week. “This gives you a sense of what part of the market each producer is involved in, such as naphthenic versus paraffinic base oils, or finished waxes versus slack waxes.” It shows some detail about market participants and the technologies they use, he added, and “it shows the evolution of the business and the changes over time. You can see how the marketplace has evolved.”
Two trends stand out in the 2002 Lubricating Oil and Wax Capacities Report. First is the consolidation of base oil refining capacity due to closings, mergers and acquisitions. Second, Group II now claims 45 percent of U.S. paraffinics refining capacity, versus Group I solvent-refined products.
Three longtime refiners have bowed out of the market, the report shows: Sun’s Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, refinery; Trinidad’s Petrotrin; and Oildale, California’s Golden Bear Oil Specialties.
Meanwhile, the Shreveport, La., facility formerly owned by Pennzoil-Quaker State is now Calumet Lubricants’, and Valero Energy acquired Diamond Shamrock’s Three Rivers, Texas, refinery as part of its larger merger with Ultramar Diamond Shamrock. Also, the Cit-Con joint venture of Citgo and Conoco unraveled last year, ending with Citgo buying out its partner.
The single largest base oil refinery in the United States is that of Motiva Enterprises in Port Arthur, Texas, with 22,000 b/d of Group II capacity, nosing out Excel Paralubes’ 21,300 b/d of Group II capacity in Westlake, La. However, the report shows how ExxonMobil Lubricants & Specialty Products really dominates the marketplace, holding 30 percent of U.S. paraffinic base oil refining capacity (48,500 b/d) at its three locations.
Base oil refining capacity in Canada edged up slightly, reaching 26,500 b/d thanks to slight increases at Imperial Oil’s two refineries, while reported capacity in Mexico slid to 6,000 b/d. North American rerefining capacity was unchanged.
Hindman stressed that since adding Mexico’s PEMEX in 1999, “the North American market portion of the report is very comprehensive. But we’d like to capture data from more of the base oil producers in South America.” The report includes Venezuela’s PdeVSA, but has been unable to get figures from others in Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia.
The full report, “2002 Lubricating Oil and Wax Capacities of Refiners and Rerefiners in the Western Hemisphere,” will be available after NPRA’s meeting next week. Copies can be downloaded free, after March 20, from www.npradc.org/publications/.