Price War: "Texas Refinery Props up US Saudi Imports"

This morning's FT Alphaville oil price commentary got me thinking of the Saudi Aramco U.S. refineries.
I so need to get a life.
Here's the bit that stood out:

...The key point, the analysts say, is that oversupply in light sweet crude is being driven by Algeria, Angola, Libya and Nigeria, not Saudi Arabia. Crude exports from the “OPEC 4” are up about 0.9m barrels per day since January, having topped 5m barrels per day first time since June 2013. Since then the US has added around 1.5m barrels a day of light sweet crude output.

That basically means a cut in Saudi output (which is not light and sweet) would do very little to address the light sweet crude overhang, a new phenomenon....

The Saudi's set up the Motiva refining joint venture on the U.S. Gulf coast as an outlet for their not-so-sweet oil, gasoline being much more fungible than the various flavors of crude.

And they went big.
At a million barrels/day capacity Motiva is the third largest refining company in the U.S. and the Port Arthur refinery at 600K of those barrels is the largest in the U.S. and fifth largest such plant in the world.

Here's Argus News with the headline story:

6 Oct 2014, 10.00 pm GMT
Houston, 6 October (Argus) — Saudi Aramco has increasingly relied upon its joint venture refinery in Port Arthur, Texas — the largest in North America — to maintain crude export volumes to the US, according to federal import data.

The 600,000 b/d Motiva refinery in Port Arthur has increased its share of all Saudi imports to the US from 10pc in 2009 to nearly a quarter through the first seven months of 2014, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The increase coincides with completion of a massive expansion project increasing crude capacity by 325,000 b/d beginning in 2012. But the refinery expansion has also coincided with declining Saudi imports in other US refining regions, as new domestic production offers alternatives to the light, sour crudes dominating the Saudi shipments to the US.

Two companies have held Saudi imports to the US Atlantic coast and to the US west coast essentially flat over the same period. PBF Energy runs Saudi crudes in part for its base oils program at its 180,000 b/d refinery in Paulsboro, New Jersey, and was the only US Atlantic coast importer of the crude since taking over the refinery in 2011. Previous owner Valero was similarly the only importer of Saudi crudes to the US Atlantic coast for the preceding two years....MORE

And from three weeks ago at Reuters:
Motiva plans hydrocracker expansion at Texas refinery-document

A few weeks ago we mentioned how big the parent company is:

Saudi Aramco is the world's most valuable company, worth maybe $10 Trillion according to the FT.
A bit under a billion dollars a day revenues.
Pretty good margins....

And back in 2012 we noted that the initial stockpiling of feedstock for Port Arthur took seven dedicated supertankers.
Anyhoo, for much better writing check out the FT Alphaville story:

It’s a super market price war! (in oil)