When management purchased it the intent was to make a profit. It has not produced a fuel price reduction compared to our competitors so it has failed in that regard. The overall cost of the refinery since it's purchase is around half a billion dollars. I would love to see it do well but that has so far not happened. Here is what seems to be a unbiased recap. Note that the slightly lower price on fuel has accredited to all airlines. Note this statement in the recap.

""""Delta says its acquisition and reconfiguration of Trainer have already helped lower jet fuel
prices by 5 to 10 cents per gallon when compared with heating oil (see page 18 of its investor
presentation in December 2013).
Those benefits accrue to all airlines operating out of New York and the rest of the
Northeast. But Delta hopes to secure company-specific gains by making Trainer itself profitable.""""


By John Kemp
LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - When Delta Air Lines announced it was buying the Trainer
oil refinery from Phillips 66, in April 2012, the U.S. carrier hailed the transaction as "an
innovative approach to managing our largest expense".
Since then, the company says vertical integration has lowered jet fuel prices in the U.S.
Northeast, its home region, and will eventually provide company-specific benefits as the
refinery processes more cheap domestic crudes and returns to profitability.
But the jury is still out on Delta's strategy. The refinery remained in the red in 2013,
reporting a loss of $116 million. On Tuesday, the airline said the refinery lost $46 million in
the fourth quarter.
No other airline has copied Delta in buying a refinery, even though plenty of other
refineries are up for sale in Western Europe and on the U.S. East Coast.
It remains unclear whether vertical integration is a more effective solution to the problem
of managing airline fuel costs than traditional hedging using futures, options and swap
contracts.

RISING FUEL BILLS
Fuel costs are increasingly critical to the profitability of airlines. In 2013, Delta spent
nearly $11.5 billion - a third of its operating costs - to buy almost 4 billion gallons of jet
fuel.
Jet fuel prices have risen almost five-fold since 2002, becoming the largest operating
expense for airlines such as Delta (Table 1).
Demand for jet is growing significantly faster than other refined products. But for
refiners, jet is only one relatively minor co-product from plants designed to maximise
production of more important fuels like gasoline and diesel.
So as refiners have closed plants on the U.S. East Coast and in Northwest Europe to
eliminate excess gasoline output and improve their margins, the squeeze on jet supplies has
grown intense, and the fuel is becoming relatively more expensive.
"Because global demand for jet fuel and related products is increasing at the same time that
jet fuel refining capacity is decreasing in the U.S. (particularly in the Northeast), the
refining margin reflected in the prices we pay for jet fuel has increased," Delta complained in
its 2012 annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Trainer's closure would have threatened to push jet costs even higher by tightening fuel
supplies in the greater New York region. Delta therefore "acquired the Trainer refinery and
related assets located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June 2012 as part of our strategy to
mitigate the increasing cost of the refining margin we are paying", it explained.

RISK MANAGEMENT
With fuel bills accounting for such a high share of the airline's cost base, managing price
risks has become ever more essential.
Like other airlines, Delta has sought to protect itself through active hedging using
futures, options, collars and swaps.
The costs of hedging have been large at times, reaching $1.4 billion in 2009, when oil
prices unexpectedly collapsed, though of course most of the costs of true hedges should have
been offset by reduced operating expenses elsewhere (Table 2).
The question is whether buying Trainer was a cheaper and more effective way of hedging price
risks and guaranteeing fuel supplies than relying on traditional hedging programmes and
importing fuel from other regions if needed.
Delta paid just $150 million to acquire the refinery and agreed to invest a further $100
million in modernising the plant to maximise jet fuel production. In addition, the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania and Delaware County have provided additional financial assistance to support job
retention, investment and economic development.
Delta's investment was "modest" and "equivalent to the list price of (just one) new widebody
aircraft," the airline's chief executive noted at the time.
Owning the refinery would allow Delta to reduce its annual fuel expense by $300 million and
ensure jet fuel availability in the Northeast. "We expect the Trainer acquisition to be
accretive to Delta's earnings, expand our margins, and to fully recover our investment in the
first year of operations," the company promised in April 2012.

JET MAXIMISATION
In practice, Trainer has struggled to meet expectations. The refinery has reported losses in
four of the last five quarters, according to the company's records.
Trainer was badly hit by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012. Even so, the company has
repeatedly promised it is about to return to profit, only to record more losses (Table 3).
The company has been reconfiguring the refinery to maximise production of jet fuel and other
high-margin distillates. The process should be completed in the first quarter of 2014, when the
combined yield of jet and distillates will hit 40 percent of total output.
Delta says its acquisition and reconfiguration of Trainer have already helped lower jet fuel
prices by 5 to 10 cents per gallon when compared with heating oil (see page 18 of its investor
presentation in December 2013).
Those benefits accrue to all airlines operating out of New York and the rest of the
Northeast. But Delta hopes to secure company-specific gains by making Trainer itself profitable.
The company makes much of its plans to buy more domestic crude, which is cheaper than imports,
as well as making further operational improvements.
Delta wants to capture the cost advantage of processing cheap Bakken crude, trapped in the
United States by logistics constraints and a ban on crude oil exports, for itself. Trainer will
supply nearly all of Delta's jet fuel needs.
Delta's management insists that buying Trainer has been a success, despite doubts expressed
by some outside the company.
"We continue to get questions as to how do we feel about Trainer," Delta president Edward
Bastian said at a presentation to investors on Dec. 11. "Let me be very clear. Trainer has been
a great success for Delta. And we are pleased that we made that acquisition."
"When we entered the market with Trainer, 40 percent of the jet fuel supply was returned to
New York Harbor, and it had an immediate impact on jet fuel prices," he added. "Every cent we
save on fuel saved us $40 million a year," Bastian said. "It's well worth the $150 million
capital investment we've made in this refinery."

INTEGRATION VS HEDGING
Buying Trainer has not yielded all the benefits that Delta originally expected. It remains
an open question whether vertical integration or using derivatives will be more cost-effective
in the long term. But it is notable that no other airline has chosen to follow Delta's lead in
this area.
In fact, structural changes in the industry may be reducing the overall need for fuel-price
hedging. Delta observes structural changes in aviation have produced a much closer correlation
between ticket revenues and fuel costs. Fuel surcharges, the elimination of excess capacity and
a disciplined approach to expansion are keeping costs and revenues aligned more closely.
Airlines use hedging to mitigate the impact of short-term rather than long-term changes in
fuel prices. Since tickets are only sold up to a year in advance (and most are sold with much
shorter maturities), airlines need only to manage price changes lasting for a few months up to a
year (the difference between fixed-price ticket sales and variable-price fuel purchases).
Virtually all airline hedging is concentrated in a 12-month window. Airlines assume that if
a rise in fuel costs lasts beyond that time frame, it will affect all airlines, and everyone
will raise ticket prices.
If fuel charges and the elimination of spare capacity are forcing a closer alignment between
fuel prices and ticket prices within the 12-month window, even short-term hedging may be
becoming somewhat less critical than before.
Perhaps the best way of thinking about Delta's investment is that the company paid $150
million, and is shouldering some ongoing losses, to keep plenty of jet-making capacity in the
Northeast.
But Delta has yet to show that buying Trainer has yielded a competitive advantage that it
could not have obtained through more conventional hedging and supply agreements. It may not have
cost the company much, but the benefits have been elusive.

Table 1: Fuel prices and costs

Fuel consumption Average price Cost Share of op. costs
(million gallons) (U.S.$/gal) ($ million) (percent)

2013 3,828 3.07 11,464 33
2012 3,769 3.25 12,251 36
2011 3,853 3.06 11,783 36
2010 3,823 2.33 8,901 30
2009 3,853 2.15 8,291 29
2008 2,740 3.16 8,686 38
2007 2,534 2.24 5,250 31
2006 2,480 2.12 5,250 30
2005 2,492 1.79 4,466 24
2004 2,527 1.16 2,924 16
2003 2,370 0.82 1,938 13
2002 2,514 0.67
2001 2,694 0.69
2000 2,922 0.67
Source: Delta Air Lines, 10-K


Table 2: Hedging gains and losses

Gain or (loss)

2012 (66)
2011 420
2010 (89)
2009 (1,400)
2008 (65)
2007 51
2006 (108)
2005 No hedges
2004 105
2003 152
Source: Delta Air Lines, 10-K


Table 3: Refinery profits and losses

Gain or (loss)
U.S.$ million

Q4 2013 (46)
Q3 2013 3
Q2 2013 (51)
Q1 2013 (22)
Q4 2012 (63)
Source: Delta Air Lines, quarterly earnings reports

that article looks interesting, and i will respond to it later. i gotta hit the rack.. early pick up in AMS tomorrow. ciao.

Sailing

I was told that the refinery was giving a $.07( can't remember exact) advantage per gallon and would make $100 million this year. They were more excited about the pennies per gallon then the $100 million

I'd rather have the $0.07 fuel advantage if I'm going to suffer the $100 million loss. :D

The thing is there were pilots who asked for the pay to be matched to A319 pay in the survey (from some I talked to). Yours truly did not ask for it in the survey so when I was given that answer by HK I didn't have anything to respond with. So either the 88/90 pilots I talked to (about 5 told me they asked for it out of the 7 or 8 I mentioned this to), or HK pulled that excuse out of his arse.

I think the $0.07/gal advantage is like +$300M vs -$100M on the facility. So you're $200M ahead when the year is over.

I think. I'm doing math. Watch out.

I would be willing to bet the replacement for the 747 will be the 777 or A350-1000. All the aircraft under consideration to replace the 767ER pay a lot more.

Are you heading to BOM or home?

It has lowered fuel prices in the NE. Estimates are 5 to 10 cents per gallon. That's the good news. The bad news is it has lowered prices for ALL AIRLINES IN THE NE. Everyone else is getting the benefit without having to sustain the purchase cost and quarterly losses. If at some point Delta decides to bail on the whole thing shutdown costs could be in the billions with environmental issues.
I am a fan of RA. Overall he has turned this airline around in a big way. Trainer is probably his biggest mistake. If he had the benefit of hindsight I don't think he would make the purchase again.

I don't know but I think a lot of the LCA were touting what was said in their meeting recently and I don't think Delta sees Trainer as a mistake.

I think the company just put a bunch of investment into the facility and so it will be able to increase the higher valued diesel and jet fuels by 40% for the coming year.

http://static.cdn-seekingalpha.com/u...57245513_0.png

I don't think it's a mistake.