5-1-2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/us-delta-idUSBRE83T17P20120501
Delta buys refinery, becoming first airline to make own fuel
Delta Air Lines Inc (
DAL.N) will buy a Pennsylvania oil refinery from ConocoPhillips (
COP.N) for $150 million, an audacious bid to save money on fuel costs by investing in a sector shunned by many of the biggest oil firms.
Atlanta-based Delta said the first ever purchase of a refinery by an airline would allow it to cut $300 million annually from jet fuel costs, which reached $12 billion last year. It said production at the refinery along with other agreements to exchange refined products for jet fuel would provide 80 percent of its fuel needs in the United States.
The deal for the idled 185,000 barrel per day Trainer, Pa., refinery, which has puzzled analysts since it first surfaced last month, will come as some relief to politicians and officials, who had feared thousands of lost jobs and a potential summer spike in fuel costs if the plant was shut permanently.
The deal offers a reprieve to one of two key refineries that had been earmarked for permanent closure this year unless buyers were found. Delta said it would get $30 million in state government assistance on the deal.
"This announcement means the preservation of more than 5,000 jobs at the Trainer facility and in related industries," Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said in a statement.
But at the same time it will raise questions among oil sector analysts about whether the rush to revive one of the half-dozen East Coast facilities that has been shut in recent years may be premature given lingering questions over whether these plants can compete without access to cheap crude.
But in addition to Trainer, private equity fund The Carlyle Group is in talks to buy the biggest refinery in Philadelphia, potentially pulling another plant back from the brink.
The analysts at Credit Suisse say another 2.6 million bpd of refining capacity across the globe must be shut "to hit the "sweet spot" utilization level of 87 percent".
East Coast refineries, among the oldest and least advanced in the country, have been hammered by a series of bad turns: the 2008 recession that cut demand; the rapid injection of ethanol into the U.S. gasoline mix; tougher environmental norms; and the rise of new, more sophisticated plants in India and elsewhere.
The final blow for many has been the surge in cheap shale oil production from North Dakota and West Texas, which has handed a bounty of cut-priced crude to Midwest and Gulf rivals who are now running their plants flat-out.