Uncertainties and Certain Significant Accounting Estimates

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2020

Unusual or Infrequent Items, or Both [Abstract]

UNCERTAINTIES AND CERTAIN SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES (COVID-19)

2.    UNCERTAINTIES AND CERTAIN SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES

Overview

The outbreak of COVID-19 and its development into a pandemic in March 2020 and certain developments in the global oil markets have impacted and continue to impact our business. We have responded in multiple ways to the impacts from these matters on our business, and we will strive to continue to respond to these impacts. During the early months of the pandemic, we reduced the amount of crude oil processed at most of our refineries in response to the decreased demand for our products, we temporarily idled various gasoline-making units at certain of our refineries to further limit gasoline production, and we took measures to reduce jet fuel production. We also temporarily idled eight of our ethanol plants and reduced production at our remaining six ethanol plants, in each case in order to address the decreased demand for ethanol. We have since increased the production of most of our products to align with increasing demand, and we have restarted the gasoline-making units and five ethanol plants that had been temporarily idled. Demand for our products taken as a whole, however, has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, so we continue to operate our refineries at reduced rates, and 11 of our 14 ethanol plants have recently returned to full production.

Many uncertainties remain with respect to COVID-19, including its resulting economic effects, and we are unable to predict the ultimate economic impacts from COVID-19 on our business and how quickly national economies can recover once the pandemic subsides, or whether any recovery will ultimately

experience a reversal or other setbacks. However, the adverse impacts of the economic effects from COVID-19 and uncertainty in the global oil markets on our business have been and will likely continue to be significant. We believe we have proactively addressed many of the known impacts of COVID-19 to the extent possible and we will strive to continue to do so, but there can be no assurance that any measures we have taken or may take will be fully effective. As a result, we expect these matters may affect our estimates and assumptions on amounts reported in the financial statements and accompanying notes in the near term.

Impairment Analysis of Long-Lived Assets

Due to the adverse economic conditions discussed above, we reviewed our significant operating assets for the existence of impairment indicators. As a result of this review, we reduced the estimated useful life of one of our ethanol plants and evaluated five other ethanol plants for potential impairment as of September 30, 2020, considering current economic conditions on our future estimated cash flows. Based on our analysis, we determined that the carrying amount of the plants was recoverable, as the undiscounted future cash flows from each plant exceeded its respective carrying value. The impact from the reduction in estimated useful life did not have a material impact on our results of operations or financial position. We will continue to evaluate the economic conditions and their impact on our assumptions.

Impairment Analysis of Goodwill

We have $260 million of goodwill as of September 30, 2020. All of our goodwill is allocated to one reporting unit, the U.S. Gulf Coast refining region. Our annual test for the impairment of goodwill is performed on October 1 of each year. However, as discussed above, there were adverse changes in the capital and commodity markets that contributed to a significant decline in our common stock price compared to the price as of December 31, 2019 and early March 2020. Despite the decline in our common stock price, we determined our goodwill was not impaired as of September 30, 2020. Nonetheless, we will continue to evaluate the economic conditions and their impact on our assumptions.

Inventory Valuation

See Note 4 regarding our LCM inventory valuation reserve and the estimates used to determine the market value of our inventories, as well as our recognition of an expected liquidation of last-in, first-out (LIFO) inventory layers.