Item 3. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Item 3. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK
Commodity Price Risk
Our earnings, cash flows, and liquidity are significantly affected by commodity price volatility. Our Revenues fluctuate with refined product prices and our Cost of revenues (excluding depreciation) fluctuates with movements in crude oil and feedstock prices. Assuming all other factors remain constant, a $1 per barrel change in average gross refining margins, based on our throughput for the three months ended September 30, 2022 of 139 thousand barrels per day, would change annualized operating income by approximately $49.9 million. This analysis may differ from actual results.
In order to manage commodity price risks, we utilize exchange-traded futures, options, and over-the-counter (“OTC”) swaps associated with:
• the price for which we sell our refined products;
• the price we pay for crude oil and other feedstocks;
• our crude oil and refined products inventory; and
• our fuel requirements for our refineries.
All of our futures and OTC swaps are executed to economically hedge our physical commodity purchases, sales, and inventory. All our open futures and OTC swaps at September 30, 2022, will settle by October 2023. Based on our net open positions at September 30, 2022, a $1 change in the price of crude oil, assuming all other factors remain constant, would result in a change of approximately $0.1 million to the fair value of these derivative instruments and Cost of revenues (excluding depreciation).
Our predominant variable operating cost is the cost of fuel consumed in the refining process, which is included in Cost of revenues (excluding depreciation) on our condensed consolidated statements of operations. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, we consumed approximately 139 thousand and 133 thousand barrels per day, respectively, of crude oil during the refining process across all our refineries. We internally consumed approximately 3% of this throughput in the refining process during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2022, which is accounted for as a fuel cost. We have executed option collars to economically hedge our internally consumed fuel cost at all our refineries. Please read Note 10—Derivatives to our condensed consolidated financial statements for more information.
Compliance Program Price Risk
We are exposed to market risks related to the volatility in the price of RINs required to comply with the Renewable Fuel Standard. Our renewable volume obligation (“RVO”) is based on a percentage of our Hawaii, Wyoming, and Washington refineries’ production of on-road transportation fuel. The EPA sets the RVO percentages annually. On June 3, 2022, the EPA finalized the 2021 and 2022 RVOs, reduced the existing 2020 RVO, denied 69 small refinery exemption petitions including ours, and proposed that certain small refineries be permitted to use an alternative RIN retirement schedule for their 2019-2020 compliance obligations. To the degree we are unable to blend the required amount of biofuels to satisfy our RVO, we must purchase RINs on the open market. To mitigate the impact of this risk on our results of operations and cash flows, we may purchase RINs when we deem the price of these instruments to be favorable. Some of these contracts are derivative instruments, however, we elect the normal purchases normal sales exception and do not record these contracts at their fair values.
Interest Rate Risk
As of September 30, 2022, we had $206.3 million in debt principal that was subject to floating interest rates. We also had interest rate exposure in connection with our liabilities under the J. Aron Supply and Offtake Agreement and the MLC Washington Refinery Intermediation Agreement for which we pay charges based on the three-month London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”). An increase of 1% in the variable rate on our indebtedness, after considering the instruments subject to minimum interest rates, would result in an increase to our Cost of revenues (excluding depreciation) and Interest expense and financing costs, net, of approximately $6.4 million and $4.1 million per year, respectively. We may utilize interest rate swaps to manage our interest rate risk. As of September 30, 2022, we did not hold any open interest rate swaps.
We have several contracts that reference LIBOR, some of which terminate after LIBOR is anticipated to cease being reported in 2023. Our facilities that currently reference LIBOR include transition language consistent with the scheduled transition. We do not expect the transition away from LIBOR to have a material impact on our financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows.
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Credit Risk
We are subject to risk of losses resulting from nonpayment or nonperformance by our counterparties. We will continue to closely monitor the creditworthiness of customers to whom we grant credit and establish credit limits in accordance with our credit policy.
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