GOTTA BE IMPRESSED. A few months ago David’s Honda Civic went on sale and mom volunteered to help find it a new owner. He cleaned the silver bird, took its picture at the car wash, and posted it for sale on various websites. Nothing happened. Then a champion timeshare vacation ownership sales executive, Hendrick, suggested that we polish the head beams and stage the car against an upscale backdrop. Ok. I had the headlights polished, and I moved the car to my neighbor’s fancy driveway. I took a few glittering pictures with a good Nikon, posted on line and three buyers showed up the following day. One of them, was a little short on the amount agreed and suggested a modified payment plan. I said OK, with a second small, but still substantial payment on July 27th. Guess what? The man showed up on the designated day, more than a month after the car changed hands and made good on his promise. Gotta be impressed. Gotta love Aruba. We’re lucky to live in a place where a man is still as good as his word. Joshua, the buyer, your mom should be proud of you. She raised you well!
THE CONTROL TOWER OUT OF CONTROL?! Hi Rona. How are you? The control tower at the airport is a hot topic these days. And rightfully so. There are a lot of lives at stake and a whole economy depends on a clean bill of health for local aviation. I have not read or heard the tape recordings and cannot say what really happened. All I can say is that the controllers need better support and outside training to help them cope with the heavy traffic and lack of radar in such a small environment. Not much more I can say in a chat, but ANSA NV need to invest in their people and the organization.
LOOKS LIKE VALERO STILL HAS A DOG IN THE RACE. I got some interesting chatter from a friend from the USA regarding Valero’s”…ultimately transfer ownership of the refinery…,” an excerpted from Valero Q2 2016 8K report:
- b) In June 2016, the Government of Aruba (GOA) entered into definitive agreements with an unrelated third party that provide for such third party to lease the Aruba Refinery and Aruba Terminal from the GOA, restart and operate the Aruba Refinery, and operate the Aruba Terminal. Because of this development, we believe that it is more likely than not that we will ultimately transfer ownership of the Aruba Refinery and Aruba Terminal to the GOA and settle our obligations under various agreements with the GOA. Therefore, we evaluated the Aruba Terminal for potential impairment as of June 30, 2016 and concluded that it was impaired. We further determined that the Aruba Terminal’s carrying value of $56 million was not recoverable and we wrote off the entire amount, resulting in an asset impairment loss of $56 million related to our refining segment in the three and six months ended June 30, 2016. No income tax benefit was recorded for this asset impairment loss as we do not expect to realize a tax benefit.
Below is an excerpt from the Q2 2016 Valero Energy Corp Earnings Conference Call held on Tuesday July 26, 2016 and a question concerning the status of the Aruba Refinery. Looks like Valero still has a dog in this race and may not be folding so easily and letting the Government of Aruba lease the refinery to Citgo/PdVSA.
Chi Chow – Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.
Yeah. Thanks, Joe, for those thoughts. Maybe a question on Aruba. There’s been a lot of industry chatter about Venezuela’s interest in Aruba lately. But you’ve written the whole asset off at this point. So are you suggesting that there’s no option going forward to sell or transfer the plant to another operator?
Joseph W. Gorder – Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer
I’m looking at Jay to see what we say about this.
Jay D. Browning – Executive Vice President & General Counsel
The option to transfer, it’s still there. I mean, it’s just a function of the financial requirements we’ve chosen to write off.
Chi Chow – Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.
Okay. So you can still transfer, but for free basically, is that kind of what you’re signaling?
Joseph W. Gorder – Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I guess so.
Chi Chow – Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, Inc.
Okay. Great. Thanks for that.
