PBF Energy officials on Thursday provided no damage assessments from a Feb. 1 fire at the company's 157,000 b/d refinery in Martinez, Calif., or a timeline for when the facility could return to service.

In a conference call to discuss the company's fourth-quarter financial results, Chief Executive Matt Lucey said that company personnel still don't have access to the area of the refinery that has apparently been cordoned off after the accident. He suggested, however, the company expects to be able to begin a damage assessment shortly, adding that the company has appropriate insurance for the plant.

Spot prices for CARBOB in Northern California since the fire have spiked by as much as 80cts/gal.

Some market sources have suggested the refinery may remain offline for an extended period. Lucey acknowledged that refined products are "desperately needed" in the state and said the company's 166,000 b/d refinery in Torrance, Calif., is running hard.

PBF reported $383.2 million loss from operations in the fourth quarter, extending the string of quarterly losses to three. Officials blamed the results on constricted global refining margins and weak light/heavy crude differentials. A number of the company's refineries are able to run heavy sour crude.

The company's Toledo refinery runs lots of Canadian crude and that could be most affected if the U.S. imposes tariffs on imports of Canadian and Mexican crude oil. The Toledo plant does not have the ability to replace Canadian barrels with domestic supply should barrels from the north become prohibitive.

PBF on Thursday also issued 2025 guidance on refinery runs, saying it expects to run its two California refineries this year at 300,000 b/d to 320,000 b/d.

The two facilities have a combined capacity of 323,000 b/d and the guidance appears to suggest the company is expecting a full restart of Martinez later this year.

It projected the Toledo refinery's throughput at about 140,000-150,000 b/d and a target run rate of 170,000 to 180,000 b/d at its Chalmette, La., refinery.

The company's two East Coast refineries in Delaware City, Del., and Paulsboro, N.J., are projected to run at 310,000-330,000 b/d, it added.

Before the fire, PBF had planned to take the Martinez plant offline for 55-65 days of maintenance work on the facility's fluid catcracker, alkylation unit and FCC hydrotreater.

The company also said it plans to take the Delaware City offline for 35-45 days of maintenance in the first half of the year and conduct 30 to 40 days of work on the Chalmette refinery's FCC and hydrotreater.

In the second half of 2025, the company said it will shut the hydrocracker for 55-65 days at the Torrance plant.

Lucey added that potential U.S. tariffs on Canada and Mexico would not put PBF at a disadvantage to other U.S. refiners and predicted global refining metrics would remain tight. He said, however, that forward crack spreads appear to be "constructive."

The company also said it would undertake a "Refinery Business Improvement" initiative this year that it believes can shave operating costs by 60cts/bbl, providing an annual cost saving of about $200 million.

At midday, shares in the company were off by more than 18% to $23.75/share, the lowest price since March 2022.

This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

   --Reporting by Tom Kloza, tkloza@opisnet.com; Editing by Jeff Barber,   jbarber@opisnet.com 
 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 13, 2025 12:39 ET (17:39 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.