The state of the refining sector in competing markets

10Dec
2013
Dinner debate in Strasbourg

Speaker: Thomas Mueller, Vice President for Oil Refining, Petro chemistry & Gas Processing

With the US becoming a net exporter of oil products, and growth of planned refining capacity in the Middle East in particular, the direction of supply and demand routes is changing. The EU refining sector is competing with ever stronger competitors even for the EU markets. It is already cheaper to import oil products from India, Russia and the US than to refine them in Europe. As European refining profit margins decline the capacity to invest to compete is also declining. As a result we have already witnessed a number of EU refineries go bankrupt. This means that the EU will have to increasingly rely on foreign refining sectors for their security of supply. This brings up questions of stability of the supplying markets. At the same time, as the EU refineries weaken they have repercussions locally, expressed in loss of highly-skilled jobs and taxes. Refineries play a key role in value chains. Therefore, their survival is indispensable to wider net of industry and enterprise.

It will be a pleasure to welcome our members at this event.