HF Sinclair downgraded to Market Perform at TD Cowen on elevated maintenance

As previously reported, TD Cowen downgraded HF Sinclair to Market Perform from Outperform with a price target of $52, down from $58. Elevated refining maintenance in 2023 will reduce free cash flow and a "particularly active maintenance period" this year will limit the company’s its ability to capture an exceptionally strong margin period before cracks could start to normalize, the analyst tells investors. Refinery utilization was guided to 75% in Q1 and "softly guided" to 90% for the rest of 2023, which yields an implied 76%, which the firm said "would be lower than the any peer recorded in the 2015-2019 period," except for HF Sinclair in 2019.