Ice holds up Tesoro crude runs

Tom Hall

Icing conditions in Cook Inlet, not low oil prices, have slowed refining operations by a little more than 20 percent at Tesoro Alaska’s Kenai facility. Tesoro Alaska President Steve Ricks told PNA, “We have to watch the levels in our tanks.” He indicated that the company had to anticipate how long the icing conditions might last. “You have to play the game, ‘All right, if we can’t get any ships in here for two weeks, then how long can we run before we fill up our tanks?’ So, we generally have to cut back our throughput to buy some more time.”

Ricks also cited another reason for the cut backs in crude runs. “Traditionally, because Alaska is seasonal — in fact, most places its seasonal, it’s just more dramatic in Alaska than it is in Anacortes — there’s a reduction in runs during the winter months, simply because the demand is not there,” he said.

Ricks told PNA that low oil prices had nothing to do with the cuts. “This is strictly operations,” Ricks said. “It has nothing to do with an economic move or anything like that. It’s just that we have to store it in tanks because we can’t move it out.” Once the icing conditions lift, Ricks said that production rates would go right back up.