Excess U.S. capacity makes it unlikely that a new refinery is currently planned but another joint venture, one which gives ConocoPhillips access to production of Russian oil and LUKOIL access to refining capacity on U.S. soil, could be a likely outcome.
The Kremlin said on Monday, in [image-nocss] documents prepared for the visit of President Barack Obama, that LUKOIL will invest in a new refinery on the U.S. East Coast with Houston-based ConocoPhillips.
"The investment of the Russian company will be attracted for the construction of a new ConocoPhillips refinery in the U.S. eastern coast that will focus on processing Russian crude blends," the documents said.
ConocoPhillips owns a 20% stake in LUKOIL, and together the two companies own an oil producing venture in Russia's Arctic, making another joint venture likely, industry watchers said. "LUKOIL wants to establish a foothold in the U.S. They already have the marketing aspect of it. They don't have the refining side of it," Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst with Oppenheimer, told the news agency.
"Conoco does not necessarily need the cash but needs the strategic alliance," Gheit added. "Conoco is going to trade its downstream for interest in the upstream."
LUKOIL, Russia's second largest oil producer and the country's private oil firm, has long been looking for a refinery stake in the United States to process its rising oil output as well as supply the more than 2,000 gas stations it controls in the United States.
Over the past several years, speculation swirled that LUKOIL was interested in taking a piece of ConocoPhillips' 238,000-barrels-per day (bpd) Bayway refinery in Linden, N.J.
LUKOIL Americas is a wholly owned subsidiary of LUKOIL, which sells branded gasoline as LUKOIL and Getty.
With the recent acquisition of ConocoPhillips premium assets in New Jersey and neighboring Pennsylvania, access to a refinery would simplify supply logistics. ConocoPhillips also has a 185,000-bpd refinery in Trainer, Pa., located on the Delaware River below Philadelphia.
Grothe said she had no comment on any joint refinery ventures as company policy did not allow her to discuss operations.
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