Petroplus to Run Teesside Refinery at 30%, Cutting Ekofisk Use

By Alexander Kwiatkowski

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Petroplus Holdings AG plans to cut operating rates at its Teesside, U.K., oil refinery to about 30 percent of capacity this quarter, potentially hurting demand for North Sea Ekofisk crude.

Petroplus will operate the plant at about 30,000 to 40,000 barrels a day in the fourth quarter, the Zug, Switzerland based company said in a statement today. The refinery has the capacity to run 117,000 barrels of crude a day, according to the company's Web site.

The Teesside refinery runs the Ekofisk blend of crude, one of the four types used to determine the Dated Brent benchmark price.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski in London at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net