Thai Oil Drops 3% after Reports of Potential Shutdown in Distillation Unit over Outage

The stock price of Thai Oil Public Company Limited (SET: TOP) declined by 3.3% to THB 51.25 per share, following the report on the outage by Argus Media that could affect its CDU.

According to traders and a source close to the refiner, TOP encountered an unplanned outage at a crude distillation unit (CDU) in its Sriracha refinery.

The report claimed that the company had likely shut down the affected CDU, with the note from traders pointing at the impact on middle distillates, which produce diesel and jet fuel, should be the largest out of total three CDUs. The refinery, currently in the process of upgrading.

Sriracha refinery can refine approximately 275,000 barrels of oil per day, a quarter of Thailand’s total refining capacity, and is able to meet 35% of domestic demand for oil products.

According to ThaiOil’s website, middle distillate production accounts for 56% of the refiner’s total production.

The source stated that TOP acknowledged the possibility of an outage that could happen in a matter of days, but as of January 12, CDUs are still running as usual.