Caltex Australia Shares Fall After Floods in Queensland Shut Oil Refinery

By Ben Sharples - Jan 12, 2011

Caltex Australia Ltd., the nation’s biggest oil refinery, dropped the most in more than six months after heavy rains forced the shutdown of a refinery that supplies about a third of Queensland state’s fuel needs.
Caltex Australia, half-owned by Chevron Corp., fell 5.7 percent, the most since June 25, to A$14.14 at the 4:10 p.m. close in Sydney. That compares with a 0.3 percent increase in the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index.
Flooding caused a “steam outage” at the Lytton refinery on Jan. 5, prompting an unscheduled shutdown, the Sydney-based company said in a statement. Partial output will resume tomorrow and progressively increase during the next 10 days, Caltex Australia said. Full operations are dependent on the Port of Brisbane, which has been closed, returning to normal, it said.
Lytton, the smaller of Caltex’s two refineries, is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Brisbane and can process 109,000 barrels of crude a day. Australia’s third-largest city faces its worst deluge since 1893 and more than 75 percent of Queensland, an area bigger than Texas and California combined, has been declared a disaster zone.
The shutdown is expected to cost between A$5 million (A$4.9 million) and A$10 million, in 2011, the fuel producer said. Caltex Australia is doing maintenance at Lytton during the shutdown that had been scheduled for later in the year. Its biggest refinery is at Kurnell, south of Sydney.
‘Severe’ Currents, Debris
Across the river from Lytton, BP Plc’s Bulwer Island refinery is operating normally, Jamie Jardine, an Australian- based spokesman, said by phone. The refinery has a capacity of 88,000 barrels per day.
The Port of Brisbane, Australia’s third-busiest container harbor, is closed to maritime traffic and all ships have been removed because of severe currents and “huge amounts” of debris including boats and pontoons floating downstream, the port said on its website today.
The facility is likely to lose power because of the flooding of electrical substations, it said. Road access is open and is expected to remain passable during the flood. The harbor lies on the southern side of the Brisbane River, 24 kilometers from the city’s central business district.
Heavy rain this week caused a landslide near the city of Toowoomba, cutting part of the West Moreton rail network that carries coal to the port, Mark Hairsine, a spokesman for track manager QR National Ltd. said yesterday.
Queensland in November agreed to sell the Port of Brisbane to a group including Global Infrastructure Partners and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, raising A$2.1 billion in cash to replace income lost to the financial crisis.

News via Bloomberg, Reporter Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net