refineries have shut down. shell closed one or two in louisiana and lyondell is closing a huge one in houston
the the equipment is getting old and outdated. no one wants to spend the money required to update since demand is only going to go down long term.
talked to a high up at the lyondellbasell facility recently a number of factors went into play:
they don’t have a direct source oil production like the big players (exxon, chevron, etc) so they can only buy the “leftover” crude, which is not only generally shitty, but the grade of oil fluctuates. makes it hard to plan things out.
they were banking on keystone XL to change that by supplying low cost crude at a set grade. we know what happened there
the refinery itself is very old with out of date equipment. The facility is generally at the end of life and they are not willing to invest in new equipment for two reasons..
lack of long term growth due to the changing market.
lack a steady supply of “good” crude (see my earlier keystone comment)
ironically they are making more money now than ever. so they plan on riding this one last wave before leveling the facility. the land is very valuable due to being on the port of houston