NorthAmOil: Chevron reportedly eyeing Shell’s Pacific Northwest refinery

Super-major Chevron has reportedly emerged as the leading contender to buy a refinery in the US Pacific Northwest that is owned by Royal Dutch Shell. This was reported by Reuters, which cited three sources familiar with the matter on March 27 as saying that Chevron was first in line to buy the Puget Sound refinery in Anacortes, Washington State.
The Puget Sound plant supplies fuel markets in the Northwest and competes with plants owned by BP, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66. Neither Chevron nor Shell have commented on the matter publicly, and a deal is not guaranteed. Indeed, Reuters cited analysts as saying that competing refiners often look at other businesses in order to evaluate their own operations.
Nonetheless, Chevron has been on something of a spending spree recently, having paid $4.1bn for independent producer Noble Energy in 2020 and having bought a 112,229 barrel per day (bpd) Texas refinery for about $350mn from Brazil’s Petrobras in 2019.
Shell, for its part, has been reducing its exposure to refining. In October 2020 the super-major said it would shrink its global refining portfolio to six sites from 14. It permanently closed its 211,146 bpd refinery in Convent, Louisiana, in December, and that plant remains for sale. It has been trying to sell its 145,000 bpd Puget Sound refinery for at least a year.