Viva Upbeat about $2.9 Billion Geelong Refinery Acquisition in Australia

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Australia (Perth, Australia)--Viva Energy (Melbourne, Australia), a subsidiary of trading giant Vitol Group (Geneva, Switzerland), is planning to reinvigorate the 120,000-barrel-per-day (BBL/d) Geelong Refinery, which it acquired from Shell Australia (NYSE:RDS.A) (Perth, Australia) in August 2014. The refinery was purchased as part of a $2.9 billion deal that saw Shell sell all of its downstream Australian assets to Vitol, excluding Shell's aviation and lubricant production businesses.

Viva Energy is confident that it can turn Geelong into a profitable refinery. Under Shell's ownership, the refinery reported huge losses and was put up for sale in 2013. There were fears of widespread job losses if Shell was unable to sell the refinery.

Vitol seems intent on making Geelong profitable by improving the efficiency of the refinery. Part of Vitol's strategy includes injecting $150 million into Geelong over the next year to make it "more efficient, safe and reliable." The investment is part of Viva's $1 billion, five-year plan to upgrade the refinery and its downstream Australian assets.

Viva will be conducting major maintenance and upgrade work at Geelong throughout 2015. This includes a six-week turnaround on the 60,000-BBL/d Crude Unit 4 in February, and a plant-wide, 45-day shutdown in September 2015. These projects are being tracked closely by Industrial Info, which expects many more upgrades and revamps to take place at Geelong over the next few years.

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Vitol Chief Executive Ian Taylor said that the company's acquisition of Geelong is the first step in growing Vitol's fuel supply capacity in Australia and the Oceanic region. Taylor has admitted that purchasing Geelong was a risky move, considering the high cost of running refineries in Australia, which is being compounded by growing competition from Asian refineries.

Taylor has admitted that Vitol is taking a "counter-cyclical punt" on Geelong by banking on world oil demand and prices to increase over the next five years: "If world oil demand grows by a million or two barrels per day per year, which is what we expect, then the refining capacity of the world also needs to grow by a similar amount."

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Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, three offices in North America and 10 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.