Winter Weather Has Increased Cost Of Heating Fuels

Delek reported an upset at an FCC unit at its Big Spring TX refinery Monday, which lasted 24 hours and required operations to be adjusted to minimize emissions. That facility was a frequent flier on the TCEQ Emissions Event page in 2024 with 14 different events. Meanwhile, upsets at the 2 other middle-of-nowhere West Texas refineries that are frequent emissions event reporters (Valero McKee and P66 Borger) over the past couple of weeks have helped rack spreads in the region to rise to their highest levels in 3 months after being heavily discounted to start the year.

In other TCEQ filing news, the Freeport LNG facility reported that it was forced to restart 3 of its trains after a power feed interruption last week. The sudden shutdown of one of the country’s largest export facilities may help explain why US natural gas futures plunged from $4 on Friday to $3.50 today as gas stocks that are destined to move overseas are rapidly backed up into storage facilities on land.

The EIA this morning highlighted higher propane prices in the US this year, as a real winter has increased the cost of heating fuels (including Nat Gas, Propane and ULSD) across the country. That increase in heating demand has helped diesel margins recover from the multi-year lows they reached at the end of 2024, although regional basis values are likely determining if refiners are thriving in January or merely surviving.

Let’s try that again: New Terms have been set for the Citgo auction re-do, but has not yet set the timeline for the process.