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Successful completion of turnarounds in 2006 |
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GM
Refining Louie Forde told senior technocrats from the Ministry of Energy
and Energy Industries that while the Division continued to work on
several key strategic initiatives to ensure the long-term viability of
its operations, one of its proudest achievements was the completion of
planned turnarounds within budgetary and other performance parameters.
He said:
“One of the most notable activities for the year was the successful
completion of turnarounds within planned expenditure and with good HSE
performance.” |
Mr. Louie Forde at the Annual Technical Meeting |
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He added
that the refinery was able to maintain crude throughput of 151,300
barrels per day by sourcing additional crude of 86,000 barrels from West
Africa, Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia. In other words, the refinery was
supplied with crude oil from domestic production and imports in
proportions of 43% and 57% respectively.
Mr. Forde
said that during the year the Refining and Marketing Divisions continued
to work on some key strategic initiatives to ensure the long-term
viability of the Company. Among them were the Refinery Performance
Improvement Project (J2E); the Gas to Liquids initiative; the Gasoline
Optimization Programme and the Premium MarketGrowth project. All of
these projects aim to ensure that the Refining and Marketing Divisions
deliver greatly improved performance in all aspects by 2011. |
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Ministry of Energy Staff |
He
revealed that refinery utilization averaged 62.5% throughout the year,
with a peak refinery utilization of 82% in January 2006, the yearly
average being influenced by downtime on Nos. 1 and 8 Crude Distillation
Units; No. 4 Vacuum Distillation Unit and No. 2 Hydrotreating Unit. It
was also influenced by industrial relations challenges on two
occasions.
Turning to
the Divisions’ financial performance he informed the audience that 2006
was the ninth consecutive year of profit for Refining and Marketing
Operations. |
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He said
that during the fiscal year 2005/ 2006 there was a net profit of
TT$436.9 million, which exceeded by far the budgeted net income of
TT$49.7 million.
He
explained: “In this period supply disappointments, little spare upstream
and downstream capacity and strong economic growth resulted in high oil
prices with West Texas Intermediate crude averaging US$66.09. The strong
demand growth for refined products, the introduction of more stringent
product specification and the near maximum utilization of refining
capacity contributed to high refining margins.” He said that the above
impacted positively on Petrotrin Refinery’s Indicative Gross Margin that
averaged US$8.76 per barrel for the period.
Capital
expenditure for the period was TT$502.8 million which represents a 137%
increase from the previous fiscal year’s expenditure. Non-recurrent
expenditure totalled TT$212.1 million as compared to TT$90.1 million
from the previous year. Mr. Forde explained that the higher expenditure
on non-current items was due mainly to the turnaround completion of No.
2 HTU and No. 1 Crude Distillation Unit. |
News Highlights 2007 |
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