Gasoline unit issues stymie HollyFrontier quarter

Problems across HollyFrontier's roughly 460,000 b/d refining system cut production of premium fuels and increased second quarter operating costs, the company said today.

All but one of the refineries had returned to normal operations, the company said. But issues in Kansas, New Mexico and Utah had persisted into July.

Unplanned work in June on a fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) at its 100,000 b/d Navajo refinery in Artesia, New Mexico, shut an alkylation unit and cut production of gasoline for the Phoenix, Arizona, market in June.

The refinery was operating normally now and benefiting from high fuel demand and crude discounts in the Permian, the company said.

The company also reported unplanned work on an FCC at its 135,000 b/d refinery in El Dorado, Kansas. The refinery was operating normally again but would go down for planned maintenance, including a crude unit in late September.

Repairs to a crude unit damaged in a March fire were mechanically complete at its 45,000 b/d Woods Cross refinery near Salt Lake City, Utah. The company would increase crude throughputs this month and return to normal rates in September.

The company maintained high overall crude throughputs during the second quarter, despite the outages, processing 463,480 b/d. Almost 79,000 b/d of that was Canadian heavy sour crude, mostly at the company's 52,000 b/d refinery in Cheyenne, Wisconsin. HollyFrontier processed 168,000 b/d of Permian crude during the quarter, with 112,000 b/d of that processed at the Navajo refinery.

The company reported a $345mn profit for the quarter, including special items, up from a $58mn profit in the second quarter of 2017.