Oil and Energy

Brief Excerpt from Industry Overview Chapter:
About 145 petroleum refineries operate in the US, owned by 60 companies, with combined annual revenue of $160 billion. Annual revenue fluctuates substantially because of the shifting price of crude oil. The industry is highly concentrated: the five largest refiners, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, BP, Valero, and ChevronTexaco, hold about 50 percent of all US refining capacity.

Competitive Landscape
Demand is largely driven by US consumption of gasoline and diesel fuel, which has been relatively flat in recent years. The profitability of refineries depends on efficient operations, the best mixture of products, and well-controlled inventories. Although there are significant economies of scale in refinery operations, a small refinery can compete effectively with large ones if it's located in a favorable market area, or if it produces specialty products that are in high demand.

Products, Operations & Technology
Refineries come in many different sizes, from 5,000 barrels per calendar day (bbl/cd) of distillation capacity up to 500,000 bbl/cd. A typical refinery has a capacity between 50,000 and 150,000 bbl/cd.

A refinery turns crude oil into various usable products like gasoline, "distillates" (diesel fuel and heating fuel), jet fuel, asphalt, lubricants, and feedstocks for chemical plants. The variety of products a particular refinery produces depends on the grade of the crude oil input, the types of downstream processing operations it has, and local market demand.

Contents are as follows:
- Industry Overview
- Quarterly Industry Update
- Business Challenges
- Trends and Opportunities
- Call Preparation Questions
- Financial Information
- Industry Forecast
- Website and Media Links
- Glossary of Acronyms

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c24583

Laura Wood
Senior Manager
Research and Markets
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