The business stories that matter, by Fortune's Colin Barr
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March 25, 2008, 7:25 am

Refinery outages vex Valero

Hundred-dollar-a-barrel crude doesn’t necessarily lead to gushing profits, as oil refiner Valero (VLO) is showing. The San Antonio-based company warned late Monday that its first-quarter earnings will fall far short of Wall Street’s expectations, as margins on gasoline and other products narrowed and unplanned refinery outages hit the bottom line to the tune of $400 million. Valero expects to make just 10 to 35 cents a share for the quarter ending this month - down from $1.86 a share last year and below the 91-cent analyst estimate.  CEO Bill Klesse is scheduled to appear Wednesday afternoon at the Citi Refining Conference in New York to discuss the business’s fundamentals. With Valero shares falling early Tuesday and approaching a 52-week low, he may be fielding some tough questions.

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Colin Barr covers business and finance for Fortune.com. Previously he was an editor at TheStreet.com and author of the weekly Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street column, and an editor at Dow Jones Newswires.
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