Renewable Feed, New Technology and C2C Strategies Offer Opportunities for Refiners The TBEC series has been added to this company’s range… By Scott Jenkins | May 1, 2021 After a rough past year, petroleum refineries are seeking profit opportunities through the use of renewable feedstocks, such as vegetable oils and waste fats, as well as with new alkylation technologies and by increasing “crude-to-chemicals” (C2C) approaches The past 18 months have generally been extraordinarily challenging for the world’s petroleum refineries, as pandemic-related restrictions dramatically reduced demand for refinery products and cut refinery utilization rates. Even with demand for transportation fuels returning as the world economy begins to emerge from the pandemic, long-term growth in gasoline and diesel fuel demand is not expected. Flat fuel demand growth, coupled with a broader trend toward decarbonizing the energy sector and increasing investment tied to environmental, social and governance (ESG), is driving petroleum refiners to seek profit opportunities through changes in the products they make and the methods they use to make them.