Posted on 11/10/2009 8:25:42 AM PST by CedarDave
Western Refining is shuttering its Bloomfield refinery and consolidating the operations of its two northwestern New Mexico plants at its Gallup refinery in a move the company says will save $25 million per year.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
Western Refining Idles Bloomfield Plant
The layoff will affect over 100 workers and is mainly due to a shortage in affordable crude supplies in the region says the article.
In turn that shortage is due to both the current low price of crude but more importantly environmental restrictions on new production including exploratory drilling on Forest Service, BLM and Indian lands.
NM list PING!
Sunoco shuts down Eagle Point in Westville, NJ
Valero shuts down the Aruba Refinery.
This one won’t be the last.
I’m not sure if this is good or bad news.
mom and pop oil refineries, tend to not
be able to squeeze the last drop
of fuel from the crude,
oth,
could be Exxon’s new variant
on refinery fires.
That will definitly hurt the 4 corners area.
I remember visiting there in 1985. From Cuba to Bloomfield (Pray for me! I drive hiway 44!) we saw large caravans of people leaving the 4 corners area as everything was being shut down then.
This seems to be a replay of that time.
Companies are also shutting down selected units in other refineries.
Valero is/has shut down the coker and gasifier complex at the Delaware City refinery. Also the coker and a fluid catalytic cracking unit at the Corpus Christi refinery.
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20090908-905575.html
Talked to a refinery E&S manager this morning. They are all feeling a profit squeeze and very worried about Obama’s new greenhouse requirements on top of NOX, SOX, low sulfur, etc. requirements.
Western is the second biggest in NM and west Texas. They would like to keep the Bloomfield refinery going, but without the volume of crude and all the environmental restrictions, it isn’t profitable.
Holly Refining now owns both the Sun and Sinclair refineries (about two miles apart) in Tulsa. Plans are to hook them together and upgrade only one to save money.
When I lived there all the wells were gas only. Tanks there were for the collection of “drip gas”. I worked making glychol reboilers for Amrican Tank and Steel and Production Equipment Corp.
Olman Heath and Western Manufacturing were just down the road.
Last month when I was there I noticed many of the gas wells now had crude oil pumps on them.
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