Dow to idle one cracker at Terneuzen: Update

Spanish Market: LPG, Petrochemicals
24/01/25

Adds butadiene capacity

Dow is postponing a planned turnaround at one of its three steam crackers in Terneuzen, the Netherlands, "due to continued weakened market conditions in the region". This will result in the cracker being idled when its legal inspection dates are reached, understood to be within the next few months.

"The decision enables Dow to both navigate soft market conditions in the region and reduce expenditures in 2025, while still enabling the company to safely, reliably, and profitably meet contracted customer commitments", Dow said.

Local reports citing workers suggest that the unit in question is the number 3 cracker at Terneuzen. This was expected to have maintenance in 2023, but that was previously postponed to this year and has now been postponed indefinitely.

Cracker 3 is the newest unit at Terneuzen and in common with crackers 1 and 2 has a high degree of flexibility for LPG feedstocks, which Dow has repeatedly cited has supported healthy operating margins relative to naphtha-based crackers. But the site is long on cracker products and placing volumes in the market has been challenging because of overall weak demand in Europe. The length was exacerbated by the closure of local derivatives such as ethylbenzene-styrene production operated by Trinseo and cumene production operated by Olin in 2023.

It has been unclear how hard the three crackers at Terneuzen have been running in the past two years. Dow's internal and contractual demand may be supported by the remaining two crackers. There is no timeline on any restart, but it is likely to be dependent on demand and investment to complete required maintenance.

Terneuzen 3 has nameplate capacities of 600,000 t/yr ethylene and 300,000 t/yr propylene. The other operating crackers have a combined capacity of 1.2mn t/yr, feeding local PE production of 880,000 t/yr. Propylene nameplate capacity of these crackers is 590,000 t/yr, which is shipped to Dow and other customers via vessel or in the northwest European pipeline system. The site also has the capacity to produce up to 170,000 t/yr of butadiene.

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30/04/25

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Repsol sees Spanish refineries back to normal in a week

30/04/25

Repsol sees Spanish refineries back to normal in a week

Adds chief executive's comments and further detail on refineries Madrid, 30 April (Argus) — Repsol said it expects its five Spanish refineries to return to normal operations within a week following the nationwide power outage on Monday, 28 April. The company confirmed that power was restored to all its refineries on Monday evening, allowing the restart process to begin. It will take three days to restart the crude distillation units and 5-7 days to restart secondary conversion units, with hydrocrackers taking the longest, according to chief executive Josu Jon Imaz. A momentary and unexplained drop in power supply on the Spanish electricity grid caused power cuts across most of Spain and Portugal, disrupting petrochemical plants and airports, as well as refineries. Imaz noted that Repsol was fortunate that its refineries avoided damage from petroleum coke formation and other solidification processes during the shutdown. Repsol's 220,000 b/d Petronor refinery in Bilbao was the first to restart, thanks to electricity imports from France, he said. Petroleum reserves corporation Cores has temporarily reduced Spain's obligation to hold 92 days of oil product consumption as strategic reserves by four days, mitigating potential supply issues from the outage. Repsol's refining margin indicator, a benchmark based on European crack spreads weighted to the firm's product basket, has been recovering this week and stood at $7.5/bl this morning, compared with an average of $4.2/bl in April and $5.3/bl in the first quarter, according to Imaz. The company posted a 70¢/bl premium to the indicator in January-March on refinery optimisation and use of heavier and cheaper crudes. This was lower than the $1.20/bl premium it reported in 2024 and negatively affected by the high water content in first-quarter deliveries of heavy Mexican Maya, a staple for Repsol's more complex refineries. The high water cut in the Maya receipts shaved a potential 50¢/bl from Repsol's refining margin premium in the first quarter, and operational issues at the company's Tarragona refinery a further 20¢/bl, according to Imaz. Repsol has already completed the three major refinery maintenance projects for 2025 it flagged at its Bilbao, Tarragona and Puertollano refineries . Work on the three refineries in the first quarter cut about 40¢/bl from the firm's refining margin. The three factors point to a combined $1.10/bl shortfall in the firm's refining margin in the first quarter and were one of the reasons for the 80pc fall in adjusted profit at Repsol's refining-focused industrial division to €131mn ($149mn) in January-March from a year earlier and the 62pc fall in group profit to €366mn. By Jonathan Gleave Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

Repsol sees Spanish refineries back to normal in a week

30/04/25

Repsol sees Spanish refineries back to normal in a week

Madrid, 30 April (Argus) — Repsol said it expects its five Spanish refineries to return to normal operations within a week following Monday's nationwide power outage. The company confirmed that power was restored to all its refineries on Monday evening, allowing the restart process to begin. It will take three days to restart the crude distillation units and 5-7 days to restart the secondary conversion units, with hydrocrackers taking the longest, according to chief executive Josu Jon Imaz. A momentary and as-yet unexplained drop in power supply on the Spanish electricity grid caused power cuts across most of Spain and Portugal, disrupting petrochemical plants and airports, as well as refineries. Imaz noted that Repsol was fortunate that its refineries avoided damage from petroleum coke formation and other solidification processes during the shutdown. Repsol's 220,000 b/d Petronor refinery in Bilbao was the first to restart, thanks to electricity imports from France, he said. State-controlled petroleum reserves corporation Cores has temporarily reduced Spain's obligation to hold 92 days of oil product consumption as strategic reserves by four days, mitigating potential supply issues from the outage. Imaz declined to speculate on the cause of the power outage. By Jonathan Gleave Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2025. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.

New Trinidad PM to seek access to Venezuelan gas

29/04/25

New Trinidad PM to seek access to Venezuelan gas

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Canada’s Liberals win minority government

29/04/25

Canada’s Liberals win minority government

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