Sales of new conventional gasoline-powered cars in the U.K. will be nearly extinct within 10 years, replaced by electric hybrids and pure electric vehicles (EVs), according to a new study released December 10 by U.K.-based fleet leasing consultant Lex Autolease.

Automakers have become accustomed to painful reviews from U.S.-based Consumer Reports (CR) magazine, but Volkswagen will be pleased by the “excellent” rating just given to its diesel Jetta TDI Sportwagen in CR’s annual auto survey.

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) “medium-term oil outlook” update to 2015 – included in the December 10, 2010 edition of its monthly Oil Market Report – finds that global crude distillation capacity expansions are now likely to top a whopping 9.2 million barrels/day (b/d) between now and 2015.

Albemarle and Petrobras announced December 6 that that they signed a memo of understanding to build a “world-scale” diesel hydroprocessing catalyst (HPC) production plant on the site of their existing joint venture Fabrica Carioca de Catalisadores SA (FCC SA) in Santa Cruz, Brazil.

A newly unveiled draft “multi-media” environmental and public health evaluation of “renewable diesel” for California Environmental Protection Agency could be summarized in four words: So far, so good.

In contrast to its continuing ban on conventional fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) biodiesel blend in diesel fuel, Colonial – one of the world’s biggest petroleum products pipelines – will now allow up to 5% all-hydrocarbon renewable diesel blend in its pipeline shipments downstream of Meridian, Mississippi.

Wood Mackenzie analysts announced December 8 that global oil demand in 2010 “is almost certain to exceed the previous all time high reached in 2007” thanks to continuing demand growth in China and India and despite continuing declines in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

PetroChina announced December 7 that it has started-up a 1.3 million tons/year hydrocracking unit that enables production of China-IV (Euro-4, 50 parts-per-million sulfur) diesel and kero-jet fuel.

While India has deregulated price controls on gasoline and promises to do the same in future for diesel, state-owned refiner-markets plan to raise gasoline prices by up to Rs 2 (US$0.04) per liter this month, with diesel price hikes to follow.

Shenhua officials announced December 6 that they aim to triple output from their direct coal liquefaction plant in Inner Mongolia by end-2015.

Virgin chief Richard Branson declared at this month’s climate-change conference in Cancun, Mexico, that 100% of company profits are going into biofuels research.

Houston-based Hunt Global Resources announced December 8 that its “BioSolutions” division has acquired a license for a process that produces a marine/industrial diesel fuel tapping “organic non-food based feedstocks to create a cleaner-burning and price competitive alternative to petroleum based industrial diesel fuels.”

While more than 95% of U.S. highway diesel fuel converted to ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) standards years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) temporarily allowed some conventional (500-part-per-million sulfur) fuel to be sold since 2006.

Dear Diesel Fuel News reader: We’re on our annual end-of-year holidays, so there will be no issues of December 20 or December 27. Our next issue will be January 3, 2011.

Compared with the prior week, ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) spot and futures prices declined in major spot and futures market late last week – despite a U.S. cold snap on Friday that at least temporarily boosted heating oil (gasoil) demand and prices.

Distillate prices weakened in major spot and futures markets last week.