Posted on 03/17/2016 12:58:57 PM PDT by bananaman22
Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco appear to be getting a divorce, breaking up their joint venture in U.S.-based refining assets.
The two companies joined together to create Motiva Enterprises LLC in 1998, a 50-50 joint venture that operated three refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. But Shell and Saudi Aramco have seen their interests head in different directions. "It is now time for the partners to pursue their independent downstream goals," said Abdulrahman Al-Wuhaib, a senior vice president of Saudi Aramco’s downstream unit.
Reuters reported that the relationship started to fray after Motiva announced a $10 billion expansion of the Port Arthur refinery, doubling its capacity to 603,000 barrels per day, making it America’s largest refinery. It produced gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. A leak shortly after the expansion was completed in 2012 led to ballooning costs, exacerbating tension between Shell and Aramco. A 2015 workers strike also sparked anger between the two companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
This is so wrong.
What could possibly go wrong?
......
Normally I am anti-regulation, BUT.....
all it would take is a few simple lines of code to fix this,
“Any company involved in base infrastructure or majority energy production of the united States SHALL NOT be owned by anyone not a citizen residing in the united states or entity based outside of the United States.”
Good Lord. There had better be some agreement in effect, and some close supervision of what is happenign there.
Those bastards could shut crap down every time they want to, and totally hose us all.
The gasoline supply bottleneck has been the refineries. During a glut of oil stocks, the refineries are sometimes shut down to drive prices.
This may end up being a good thing.
This “divorce” between Shell and Saudi Aramco effectively puts two refineries solely in Shell’s hands and one in Saudi Aramco’s hands, rather than all 3 being split 50/50 between the two parties.
Shell can ride out this storm, but Saudi Arabia needs cash pretty bad. My bet is they put their downstream assets up for sale sooner rather than later, and somebody will get a pretty good deal for it.
What if they pack it up and take it home??? How big are these refinery things anyway?
I concur. Motiva Port Arthur will soon be sold. The Saudis have a lot of people on welfare who want their money on a regular basis.
ROFLOL!!!!
Shell isn’t a U.S. company either............
hmmmm.....look for frequent refinery fires from here...
Is there really such a thing as a US company anymore?
/s (but only barely)
I have two.....
Aloha snackbar!/sarc
Dang! There goes my low gas prices
[ What if they pack it up and take it home??? How big are these refinery things anyway? ]
They can cut production to drive up prices, they can sabotage it etc etc....
It is sounding like getting involved in Saudi Arabia in the past was a mistake.
We should have got some of our own damned oil elsewhere.
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