The paper’s conclusions about the long-term prospects for refining in Europe post-2025 were highlighted in the International Energy Agency’s Oil Market Report published today.

The paper showed that all of France’s refineries and all but one in the U.K., were among half the region’s refineries that qualified as candidates for restructuring or closure, the IEA said.

The study looked at 34 refineries in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and the U.K. Only 12, or about 3 million b/d of existing crude distillation capacity of 14 million b/d, would survive in the most extreme scenario, the paper said, “implying that the post 2025 northwest Europe refinery sector would only cover 40% of overall oil product demand.”

However, under lesser scenarios, 21 were thought to overcome the threat of growing oil product imports, leaving 13 (2.6 million b/d) exposed to a “significant risk of closure” from inbound imports.

Domestic refineries in northwest Europe covered 90% of oil demand in the region, the report said. Germany’s refining sector was the most protected from closure, the IEA concluded from its analysis of the paper.

CIEP is affiliated with the Netherlands Institute of International Relations and says it is an independent forum, according to its website.

Europe’s gasoline surplus was put at 30 million tons and its distillate surplus at 60 million tons, and 10 of the region’s 90 refineries should close, Total, the region’s biggest refiner, said back in 2014.

Cheap energy and lower environment standards elsewhere places European refiners at a competitive disadvantage as distillate imports rise from new refineries in Asia and the Middle East.

“In the business of refinery closures, the first mover is at a disadvantage,” the IEA concludes.

“Margins, even if temporarily, tend to improve, but it is the companies that did not part with their unwanted capacity that benefit most. This variation of the prisoners’ dilemma adds further complication to refinery industry rationalisation in the free market.”