FOCUS: More woes for EU's refiners as governments declare war on diesel
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Published date | 01 November 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/oet.12534 |
FOCUS
More woes for EU’s reners as governments declare war on diesel
Aer decades of promoting diesel as an automotive
fuel, during which time Europe’s reners investe d heav-
ily in capacity to increase its production, the EU has
decided that it doesn’t like diesel so much aer all.
Member-countries are now lining-up to restrict its use
and in some cases, have announced bans on its use in
motor cars by the year 2040.
ese moves on diesel fuel are the latest in a series
of measures aecti ng European reners. In rec ent years,
the rening industry has had to spend large sums of
money complying with directives from the EU on vari-
ous aspects of its operations, including emissions of car-
bon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and the sulfur content
of liquid fuels.
All this comes against a background of poor mar-
gins and falling rener y throughput levels. At the same
time, new and large reneries outside the EU have been
exporting increasing quantities of rened products to
Europe, threatening the market share of the reneries
that are based there. e resultof all this has been a ser ies
ofreneryclosuresacrosstheEU,totalling2.4mnbpdof
crude distillat ion capac ity (see Ta bl e A ) an d mo r e l o o k
set to follow.
Closures of more than 1 mn bpd of capacity are
expected over the next few years. Small inland reneries
are particularly vulnerable, along with those that have
the least exibility to alter their product slates in line
with changing demand patterns. e remaining rener-
ies will have to nd new ways of operating if necessary
by moving into new business areas such as petrochem-
icals. Many will have to rely less on traditional local
and national markets and operate as merchant reners
across much wider areas. e prospect of further ren-
ery closures is likely to turn the issue into a political
one, as in France where t here is strong resistance by
trades unions to further closures, or in countries such as
Ireland, where renery closures could end rening there
altogether, and thus are seen as a threat to the country’s
energy security.
Dethroning diesel
For many years a concentration by the EU on carbon
reduction, combined with a powerful lobby of motor
car manufacturers has favored diesel over petrol as an
automotive fuel on the grounds of the greater thermal
eciency of diesel engines over those run on gasoline,
but high levels of pollution from diesel exhaustsin urb an
areas combined with the increasing eciency of gasoline
engines has helpe d produce a move away from diesel and
back to gasoline. e problems with diesel came to the
fore in 2015, when it emerged that German car-maker,
Table A
EU Renery Closures, 2009-2017
Company Renery Crude Distillation
Capacity
(bpd)
Croatia
INA Sisak 44,000∗
Total 44,000
Czech Republic
Unipetrol Paramo 20,000
Total 20,000
France
Total Dunkirk 156,000
Petroplus Reichstett 85,000
LyondellBasell Berre l’Étang 105,000∗
Petroplus Petit Couronne 162,000
Total Gonfreville 111,000†
Total La Mède 150,000§
Total 769,000
Germany
ConocoPhillips Wilhelmshaven 260,000
Shell Hamburg-Harburg 110,000
Total 370,000
Italy
Tamoil Cremona 90,000
Total/Erg Rome 86,000
ENI Porto Marghera 80,000
MOL Mantua 55,000
ENI Gela 100,000
Total 411,000
Romania
Petrom Arpechim 70,000
Total 70,000
United Kingdom
Petroplus Teesside 117,000
Petroplus Coryton 220,000
ExxonMobil Fawley 40,000†
Shell Stanlow 100,000†
Murphy Milford Haven 135,000
Total Lindsey 100,000†
Total 712,000
Europe‡
Total 2,396,000
∗Mothballed
†Capacity reduction
§To be converted to biofuel plant
‡Excluding Former Soviet Union
Capacities approximate
Source: Rafes Petroleum; Oil Press
Volkswagen, had installed soware in its diesel motor
carsthatwasdesignedtorecordlowerlevelsofpollution
when tested by US regulators than was the case under
actual driving conditions [1].
© 2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd
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