-ExxonMobil appears likely to get approval from regional air quality officials to boost production at its explosion-damaged Torrance, California, refinery, the L.A. Times reports. ExxonMobil is seeking to start up an old pollution control system to replace the one that was damaged in the February blast. The company has been operating the plant at 20% of its capacity since then. If ExxonMobil’s plan is approved, it could be back up to 80-85% later this month.
-Meanwhile, refinery utilization rates fell 1.9 percentage points last week, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Crude inventories rose by 2.6 million barrels.
-Reuters columnist John Kemp explains the operational constraints that keep refineries from filling storage tanks to their maximum capacities. According to the EIA, total crude in storage was 475 million barrels at the end of March, when total capacity was 660 million barrels.
-Analysts at Goldman Sachs say the global oil market is even more oversupplied than they previously thought. Via Bloomberg, oil prices may have to drop as low as $20 per barrel to clear oversupply if production does not slow down quickly enough. Goldman said non-OPEC production must shift from modest growth to large declines, but it is not clear where those declines would take place.
-Sunoco Logistics Partners on Thursday announced a binding open season for its Mariner East 2 expansion project. The project would expand capacity to transport NGLs and condensate from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays to Sunoco’s Marcus Hook Industrial Complex on the Delaware River.
