Economics
Vertex Energy files for bankruptcy, explores sale
Vertex Energy has filed for bankruptcy in a Texas (U.S.) court, just months after it paused renewable diesel output at an Alabama refinery over macroeconomic woes.
Marathon, Teamsters negotiations remain at standstill as strike enters third week
Marathon Petroleum and the Teamsters union, which represents refinery workers in Detroit, Michigan (U.S.), are at a standstill as negotiations for a new labor agreement stagnate and the strike at the plant enters its third week.
Prompt engineering: Extracting operational excellence knowledge from AI—Part 1
Prompt engineering is an emerging discipline at the intersection of AI and process engineering and will undoubtedly contribute to the hydrocarbon and green molecules processing industries. Parts 1 and 2 (October 2024) of this article explore and provide a glimpse of how this technique can help process engineers and operators to manage the power of advanced AI models to optimize processes, contribute to solve complex problems, and improve operational efficiency in refineries and petrochemical plants.
Chinese court declares another Sinochem refinery bankrupt
A Chinese court has declared bankrupt a third refinery owned by state oil and chemical group Sinochem, a court document showed. The Changyi city court also ended reorganization procedures at the refinery, Shandong Changyi Petrochemical.
Global refiners face profit slump as new plants come online
Oil refiners in Asia, Europe and the U.S. are facing a drop in profitability to multi-year lows, marking a downturn for an industry that had enjoyed surging returns post-pandemic and underlining the extent of the current slowdown in global demand.
Indian refiners jointly negotiating for 2025 Russian oil supplies
Indian refiners are jointly negotiating to purchase Russian oil for next year, with suppliers mostly using Russian insurance for crude priced above a $60 per barrel (bbl) cap.
Singapore's middle distillates stocks dip for third week amid robust net exports
Singapore's middle distillates inventories fell for a third straight week, tracking the strength in gasoil/diesel net exports.
Update: Rosneft's complaint over Schwedt stake sale unlikely to succeed
Russia's Rosneft is unlikely to succeed with its complaint against Shell's planned sale of a stake in Germany's PCK Schwedt refinery, a German court said on Wednesday, citing a preliminary assessment.
Zeopore prepares for global production of economical, premium hydrocracking meso-zeolites
Zeopore is initiating discussions with candidate partners to jointly commercialize its unique zeolite mesoporization route. Combining improved hydrocracking (HDC), Zeopore’s optimized HDC zeolites bring 3 wt%-7wt% more middle distillates, depending on feedstock and process conditions.
Asia ultra-low-sulfur gasoil refining margins sink to near 3-yr low
Asia's ultra low-sulfur gasoil refining margins collapsed to the lowest in nearly three years, as excess supply and persistently soft derivative markets depressed prices.
- Portugal's Galp plans to start producing biofuels in 2026 12/20
- Prax and Shell call off deal on stake in PCK Schwedt oil refinery 12/20
- Nigeria's Dangote Refinery hits 85% refining capacity 12/20
- India's BPCL buys first Argentinian crude oil cargo for Feb. delivery 12/20
- Sinopec's Zhenhai oil refinery expands capacity to 40 MMtpy 12/20
- Oil via Russia's Druzhba pipeline halted by technical problems 12/20
