Antwerp refinery may close due to economic viability, says Gunvor

Gunvor Group bought the hydro-skimming refinery Gunvor Petroleum Antwerp (GPA) in 2012 and has since invested more than $300 million in the refinery. However, it says a “challenging European refining environment” and various geopolitical and macroeconomic events have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Now, Gunvor is considering closing its refinery in Antwerp, “due to doubts about its long-term economic viability”, but has confirmed that the 1.1.million m3 tank terminal on the site will remain operational.

As well as the demand slowdown, GPA has struggled with a lack of availability of the medium sulphur crude oil it is designed to process, which is consequently becoming more expensive. 

While the company had previously been able to use trading activities to prop up GPA’s decreasing refining margins, it can no longer do so. Gunvor is in discussions with the Employee Works Council regarding redundancies, which could affect 230 people.

Torbjörn Törnqvist, Co-Founder and Chairman of Gunvor Group, said that decision has been a difficult one, and pledged to support the employees: “I first began working with the refinery in the mid-1990s, earlier in my career, when it was known as “BRC” (Belgian Refining Corporation). 

“I know it very well, and was proud to rescue it from insolvency in 2012. Our team has made many efforts and investments to keep GPA a going concern, but the novel coronavirus pandemic has turned an already challenging situation into one that’s unsupportable. GPA has had and will now certainly continue to experience negative cash flow on a magnitude that is not affordable for the group.”

More sophisticated refinery capacity will further increase demand. Competition due to an overall growth in refining capacity worldwide, with even more coming onstream in the coming five years will create an excess of supply, without any significant demand growth forecast. There has also been a significant increase in costs, including for a planned turnaround, and those related to regulations and environmental requirements such as carbon taxes.

Gunvor’s refineries in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Ingolstadt in Germany are unaffected.

For more information visit gunvorgroup.com

29th June 2020