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Economics

Oil steadies just above three-month lows on oversupply

Oil prices steadied just above three-month lows as producers continued to pump more than needed, filling inventories, and economic growth prospects darkened.

Oil falls towards $44, lowest since May, on glut worries

Oil hit its lowest since May, falling towards $44/bl, pressured by concerns that a long-awaited rebalancing of the market would be delayed due to excess supply.

Refiner Valero's profit beats but margins stay under pressure

US refiner Valero Energy Corp. reported a quarterly profit that beat analysts' reduced estimates, even as the company's refining margin continued to be gutted by a spike in gasoline and distillate inventories.

As market sours, ships carrying LPG anchor off Singapore

After a flood of US exports into the region, the Asian market is awash with LPG and supplies are being stored in ships anchored off Singapore.

An operations reference model for common refinery operations

BR&L Consulting Inc.: Brandl, D.
Schneider Electric: Turk, M. A.

Refineries are large, highly automated, complex systems involving hundreds of people, thousands of work processes, thousands of control loops and tens of thousands of input/output points.

Industry Metrics

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Rhodes, Mike

The impact of Canadian and French refinery outages caused margins to fall slightly in the Atlantic Basin and Europe, despite stronger gasoline demand and higher inventories.

Business Trends: Asia’s smaller downstream players have big plans

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Nichols, Lee

Most of the focus on Asian downstream capacity construction revolves around large consuming nations, such as China and India.

Viewpoint: Envisioning a “future-proof” refinery of the future

Emerson Process Management: Carugo, M.

Trying to predict how global refining markets will look in 2026 is a losing proposition. The only thing we can count on with any real certainty is uncertainty.

Reliability: Machinery quality assessment on twin-screw compressors

Hydrocarbon Processing Staff: Bloch, Heinz P.

Machinery quality assessment (MQA) is similar to bid conditioning, and both relate to structured efforts.

Global: Meeting Africa’s demand for oil products

Contributing Editor: Oirere, S.

Demand for refined oil products is expected to continue growing in Africa, both in the short and medium terms. However, the continent’s refining capacity is unlikely to keep pace as commercial risks threaten to hold back planned new refineries and the expansion of existing facilities.