Out of gas: An unnamed source has told Reuters that Shell is planning to begin permanently shuttering the gasoline-producing unit at its 227,586 barrel-per-day refinery in Convent, Louisiana, in January. Shell has rescheduled planned repairs on the heavy-oil hydrocracking unit from spring 2018 to next summer. The company plans to overhaul the Convent refinery’s alkylation unit in October of this year. Shell spokesman Ray Fisher declined to discuss maintenance plans at the refinery with Reuters. Plans were laid as early as 2014 to idle the 92,000 bpd gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit at the refinery because it was seen as unprofitable as opposed to the 45,000 bpd heavy-oil hydrocracker. Decommissioning the FCCU is part of Shell’s plans to link the Convent refinery to its refinery in Norco. It will take a year to fully decommission the Convent FCCU. Read more.
Reading the tea leaves: Starbucks will shutter all 379 Teavana locations by spring 2018, the company announced Thursday. As CNBC reports, Starbucks says that many of its Teavana mall stores were a drag on it most recent quarterly report, with as many as 350 of these stores hurt by reduced foot traffic. CFO Scott Maw said back in April that the company had begun a review process to “take clear action” to improve its Teavana portfolio, but concluded that it could not reverse underperforming stores—even through creative merchandising and new store designs. Starbucks purchased Teavana in 2012 and has one location in Baton Rouge at the Mall of Louisiana. Read more.
At the half: A surged in consumer spending revved up the U.S. economy in the second quarter after a weak start to the year. But as The Associated Press reports, the growth spurt still fell short of the optimistic goals President Donald Trump hopes to achieve through tax cuts and regulatory relief. The Commerce Department says that growth in the gross domestic product, the economy’s total output of goods and services, expanded at a 2.6% annual rate in the three months that ended June 30. That’s more than double the revised 1.2% pace in the first quarter. The improvement was powered in large part by robust consumer appetite for items such as clothing and furniture. The 2.6% GDP gain came in close to economists’ expectations. Read more.
