Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Eric Fisher: Yes, I think what I would say about SAF is the airlines are still in very much an educational phase of this. What they’re still trying to wrestle with is I think there is a good understanding of it’s going to come from RD. They’re starting to understand the credit markets and how they work. But as you know, all of these SAF demands, a lot of them are voluntary from the carriers and as well as because it’s voluntary, they’ve got options on, do they want to accept allocation, do they want to accept — which model do they want to operate under, where in the world do they want to run these barrels? And I think the learning that everyone is working through right now is conventional jet is a fungible product. And so the SAF will naturally move into fungible markets, just like jet fuel does.

But as airlines want the specific molecule at their particular location, particular airport, even at the airports, it then becomes a fungible product. So, all of that becomes a conversation of, okay, how do you then take that sort of real-life logistics and apply it into these policies and goals and how do you want to set up a commercial deal with that? So, there’s still a lot of details being worked through on how this will physically move into the market. And then as a result of that, how it will price. So, I think airlines are still — we’re still working through a lot of those details. I don’t see any drop in interest or demand. We see demand still growing strongly through 2030. So I think there’s still a lot of upside in this outlook. I think it’s — but we have to work through these commercial details and logistical details.

Theresa Chen: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Doug Leggate of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Doug Leggate: Thanks. Good morning everybody. Gary, perhaps I could pick on you a little bit given your recent good news. Congrats from me as well. But diesel, a couple of months ago, the world was coming to an end in terms of consensus expectations. And today, we’re back at winter-type premiums for distillate cracks. So, I know you touched on it already in some of your comments. But can you maybe speak to what you’re seeing that’s driving that strength? And I want to address specifically what you’re seeing in Asia as it relates to trading. Our understanding is Chinese exports are down and maybe that’s creating some globally. So, I’m just wondering if you can offer any perspective as to why the split is as strong as it is today?

Gary Simmons: Yes, I think you definitely saw as China ramped up and they didn’t have the domestic demand keep up with that initially, you saw a lot of Chinese exports. Some of those barrels were making their way into Europe. And then you had some trade flows that needed to rebalance with the Russian sanction. So, initially, we saw a decreased demand from Latin America and so diesel was starting to back up in the US. But as trade flows have rebalanced, the Russian barrels that are making their way into Latin America that gap has largely been filled by increased demand from Europe. So, if you look for — in our system in the second quarter of last year, our export is pretty comparable to the second quarter of this year. However, last year, 95% of our volume went to Latin America, 5% to Europe.

Second quarter of this year, we had 60% of our exports go to Latin America with 40% to Europe. So you’re starting to just see a big pull of diesel from the U.S. Gulf Coast into Europe. We thought in the second quarter and thus far in the third quarter, that’s continuing. And that’s the real difference.

Doug Leggate: So I hope this isn’t a second question. This is kind of a clarification question. So are you suggesting that Russian exports are starting to — they’re starting to slow, which I think was the expectation. Is that — am I reading your comments correctly?

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