The US's largest refiner, Marathon Petroleum, has announced that it will be permanently shutting down two refineries in the US. The closure of the refinery in Martinez, California (166,000 barrels per day) and Gallup, New Mexico (26,000 barrels per day) will result in the elimination of 800 jobs.

Why are they closing?

Due to decreased demand as a result of COVID-19, the two refineries were idled earlier this year. Those refineries were chosen to be idled because they are the two highest cost refineries in Marathon's portfolio. Both of the refineries were part of Marathon's acquisition of Andeavor back in 2018.

What happens to the plants now?

No plans have been announced for the small Gallup refinery. The Martinez refinery was California's fourth-largest, and Marathon plans on converting it into an oil-storage facility. Marathon also mentioned in their statement that they are "evaluating the strategic repositioning of Martinez to a renewable diesel facility, which aligns with California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standards objectives and MPC’s greenhouse gas reduction targets."

Read more here on Bloomberg.

Italy's Maire Technimont subsidiary, NextChem, has signed an agreement to license Brazilian GranBio's ethanol from non-food biomass technology.

Some context on cellulosic ethanol:

The technology has already been implemented in Brazil and utilizes agricultural waste and energy crops as feedstocks for ethanol production. The production of cellulosic ethanol isn't a new concept and has traditionally been criticized for being uneconomical.

Didn't I just read this last week?

NextChem was mentioned last Wednesday when they signed a similar agreement with LanzaTech to produce ethanol from other waste sources like non-recyclable plastic. Now, NextChem will be able to produce ethanol from other waste streams like "cane straw, miscanthus, and corn stover and even leftover wood such as pine and eucalyptus", says the CEO of GranBio.

Read the press release here.

Global petrochemical corporation, LyondellBasell, announced that they will be delaying the completion of their $2.4 billion propylene oxide (PO) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA) plant to Q3 2022.

A little context:

The plant began construction back in 2018 and was initially scheduled to startup sometime next year. CEO of LyondellBasell, Bob Patel, said in their Q2 earnings conference call, "we've essentially delayed the project by one year". The project was initially slowed a couple of months ago to limit the spread of COVID-19 between construction workers.

Curious about what PO and TBA are for?

The majority of PO produced globally is converted into polyols, which are then most commonly used to produce polyurethanes (aka mattresses, foam insulation, seats, Spandex, etc). TBA, on the other hand, is mainly used to produce ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) which is used to increase the octane rating of gasoline (increases combustion efficiency, decreasing emissions), but for better or worse is primarily exported from the US.

Read more here on ICIS.