US Valero to sell Paulsboro refinery to PBF Energy for $360m

28 September 2010 17:40  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS)--US refiner Valero has signed an agreement to sell its Paulsboro refinery in New Jersey to PBF Energy for $360m (€266m), a move that caused little change on Tuesday to the company's stock price.

The deal should close in the fourth quarter, PBF said. In addition to the refinery, PBF will also acquire a connecting natural gas pipeline, the refinery's hydrocarbon inventory and other assets.

The Paulsboro refinery, with a capacity of 185,000 bbl/day, is a high-conversion heavy-crude-oil refinery, with a Nelson complexity rating of 13.1, PBF said.

The refinery has a delayed coking unit, a fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) unit, a reformer and an alkylation unit, PBF said.

The refinery also has a lubricant-oil-processing capacity of 12,000 bbl/day, PBF said.

The sale was part of Valero's plan to leave refining in the US east coast, according to a statement by chairman Bill Klesse. In fact, Valero has been exploring options for the Paulsboro refinery since the third quarter of 2009.

The Paulsboro sale is the second deal that PBF has made this year with Valero.

In June, PBF closed on a $220m deal to acquire Valero's idled Delaware City refinery in Delaware City. The deal also included the site's power plant complex.

The Delaware City refinery had a capacity of 190,000 bbl/day. PBF said it would restart the refinery in the first half of 2011.

Like Paulsboro, the Delaware City refinery is a high-conversion heavy-crude-oil refinery, with a Nelson complexity rating of 11.3, PBF said.

The Delaware City refinery includes a fluid coking unit, a fluid catalytic cracking unit, a hydrocracking unit with a hydrogen plant, a continuous catalytic reformer and an alkylation unit, PBF said.

PBF is owned by equity firms the Blackstone Group and First Reserve as well as Petroplus Holdings, Europe's largest independent refiner.

Earlier this week, Petroplus said it would sell its PBF stake to the Blackstone and First Reserve.

Shares of Valero traded midday at $17.07, up 1.1%.

($1 = €0.74)

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By: Al Greenwood
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