August 14, 2020:

The Philippine unit of Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday it will permanently shut one of the country’s two oil refineries, blaming a pandemic-led slump in margins, with other regional closures likely to follow, according to analysts. Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp said its 110,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Tabangao facility in Batangas province, which began operations in 1962, was no longer economically viable and would be turned into an import terminal. Singapore’s complex refining margin DUB-SIN-REF, the bellwether in measuring profitability at Asian refineries, has been mostly negative since March prompting many refiners to cut output or temporarily shutter operations. In the United States and Europe, refiners are permanently halting processing or weighing lasting shutdowns.

By Reuters