SINGAPORE: South Korea’s top refiner SK Energy will shut its 275,000 barrels per day (bpd) Incheon refining complex for a planned maintenance from September to November, trade sources said. The maintenance is expected to start in the second-half of September, the sources said on Friday, although exact dates were not immediately known.
A spokesman at SK Innovation, that owns SK Energy, declined to comment. The shutdown would reduce South Korea’s crude and condensate imports and is positive for fuel sellers in a market awash with oil products, traders said. Asia has surplus middle distillates but is short of naphtha and fuel oil. The Incheon maintenance will coincide with turnarounds held by S-Oil Corp and Japan’s Cosmo Oil and JX Nippon Energy. SK Energy also operates an 840,000-bpd refinery in Ulsan.
