Refining
Marathon plans new name, upgrade for BP Texas City refinery
Marathon Petroleum, which officially completes its acquisition of the 415,000 bpd complex on Friday, has begun referring to the Gulf Coast site as the Galveston Bay refinery.
Japan boosts imports of Russian LNG, crude oil
Japan's imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia rose 17% to 8.3 million metric tons last year, while its imports of Russian crude oil increased 10% to 10.02 million kiloliters, or about 172,000 bpd. Japan also imported 8.12 million tons of thermal coal from Russia in 2012, up 8.1% from 2011.
South Korean refining margins projected to remain strong through March
Refining companies are likely to keep run rates high, until maintenance season in March, to take advantage of the better margins, and this will support export volumes. Margins are now supported by strong demand for middle distillates, especially kerosene, due to winter demand in North Asia.
Valero exploring use of rail to move Canadian crude oil to US Gulf refineries
Valero already has expanded greatly how much oil from Texas and North Dakota its Gulf Coast refineries use. The San Antonio, Texas, company, the world's largest independent refiner, now is looking into using rail cars to bring Western Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast, home to about two-thirds of its refining capacity.
Hess to sell terminals, close New Jersey refinery
Hess no longer considers the terminal network -- which includes 19 terminals along the East Coast and which had been a main outlet for production for its Hovensa joint venture with PdVSA -- as central to its operations. Hess's St. Lucia terminal in the Caribbean also will be in the group offered for sale.
Vietnam inks refinery deal with Japan, Kuwait firms
State-owned PetroVietnam will own a 25.1% stake in the joint venture while Japan's Idemitsu Kosan and Kuwait Petroleum International will each hold 35.1%. Mitsui Chemicals of Japan will own the remaining 4.7%. The refinery will be able to process 10 million tpy of crude oil, the government said.
Bechtel acquires Chevron water treatment process
The WWT Process is a proprietary, two-stage sour water stripping process that separates ammonia and hydrogen sulfide streams from sour waters generated by a refinery’s process units. The technology also allows debottlenecking of sulfur plants and can reduce the cost of new sulfur units.
KBR named engineering partner by CRI for catalytic thermochemical technology
Under the terms of the contract, KBR will provide basic engineering services for broad, full scale commercial deployment of IH2 units. IH2 technology is a cost-effective catalytic thermo-chemical process to produce liquid transportation fuels from renewable resources.
US appeals court overturns key portion of EPA's renewable fuels mandate
The decision means the EPA will have to be more cautious in setting future requirements for buying advanced renewable fuels, including a mandate for this year that is still pending. In previous years, developers relied on the EPA's mandate to show investors there will be a market for their product.
US could become world's biggest liquid fuels producer by 2014
Total US production of liquid fuels could equal or surpass Saudi Arabia as early as next year, but crude oil output will still remain short, according to an EIA administrator.
- CTCI awarded $417-MM EPC contract to build ethylene storage in Qatar 11/15
- Russian refineries cut oil runs due to losses, closures loom 11/15
- Spain's Moeve swings to quarterly loss on weak refining margins 11/15
- Asia naphtha supply expected to remain tight over next two years 11/15
- Countries, companies lag in response to tackle methane emissions, U.N. says 11/15
- U.S. energy draws up a wish list for new Trump administration 11/15
