San Antonio-based independent refiner Tesoro said recently its expected fourth quarter earnings were positively affected by a widening of industry benchmark margins beginning in mid-December due to historically low gasoline inventories on the U.S. West Coast.

The low inventory levels were attributed to unplanned refinery maintenance, the company said.

As Mexico posted its biggest decline in crude output since World War II, Pemex President Jesus Reyes Heroles said in a radio interview that a much-needed new refinery could cost up to $10 billion.

No refineries have been built in Mexico for 30 years, and the country relies on imported fuel for more than 40% of its oil consumption. Mexico’s crude output fell 9.2% in 2008, to 2.8 million b/d, down from 3.1 million b/d in 2007.

Pemex is currently studying locations for the prospective new refinery, with hopes to begin early construction work by the fourth quarter of 2009, Reyes Heroles said.

Struggling U.S. automaker Chrysler, which recently received a $4 billion bailout from the U.S. government, announced Jan. 20 it and Cerberus Capital Management, the majority owner of Chrysler, have signed a non-binding term sheet to establish a global alliance with Italian automaker Fiat.

The alliance would give Chrysler access to “competitive, fuel-efficient vehicle platforms, powertrain and components to be produced at Chrysler manufacturing sites,” the company said.

Canadian integrated oil sands company Suncor reported Jan. 20 that it lost C$215 million (U.S. $170 million) in the fourth quarter of last year. The company earned C$1 billion (U.S. $790 million) in the fourth quarter of 2007.

“Excluding unrealized foreign exchange impacts on the company’s U.S. dollar denominated long-term debt, the impact of income tax rate reductions on opening future income tax liabilities and project startup costs, earnings of the fourth quarter of 2008 were C$434 million, compared to C$677 million in the fourth quarter 2007,” the company said.

Pennsylvania-based United Refining announced a first quarter net income loss of $59.6 million, compared to its net income of $13.4 million earned for the same quarter in the prior year.

Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s Oil Minister, told the Associated Press last week that there is no dispute between state-owned PDVSA and Brazil’s Petrobras, its joint venture partner in the Abreu e Lima refinery in Brazil.

“The company has no problem with Petrobras,” he said. Ramirez noted that PDVSA still intended to fund 40% of the $4 billion project’s cost and ship half of the refinery’s 200,000 b/d capacity.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners announced that despite the difficulties posed by the economic climate the company met the bulk of its financial targets for 2008. The company’s earnings were up 24% to $2.8 billion from $2.2 billion reported in FY 2007.

The Canadian province of Ontario says it is laying the groundwork for developing an electric vehicle network.

Ontario’s government intends to release by May 2009 the results of a study on encouraging the use of electric vehicles within the province. The government is also partnering with California-based Better Place to build an electric car demonstration center in Toronto.

Better Place, previously known as “Project Better Place,” has similar partnerships in San Francisco, Denmark and Israel.

San Antonio-based pipeline and terminal company NuStar Energy reported last week fourth quarter earnings of $25.3 million, up 12% from the same quarter 2007.

The earnings included a $22.7 million net gain resulting primarily from the sale of non-strategic assets, including an interest in the Skelly Belvieu pipeline located in Texas and three storage terminals located in Westwego, La., Milwaukee, Wisc., and Sparks, Nev.

The sale generated proceeds of $43.9 million.

The Kuwaiti parliament has created a committee to investigate potential ethics violations by government officials in the dealings of the now cancelled $15 billion al-Zour refinery.

Chinese state oil company CNPC paid a windfall tax of 85 billion yuan (U.S. $12.4 billion), approximately 62% of its profits for 2008, to the Chinese government.

India’s Reliance Industries reported recently after-tax earnings of Rs. 3,501 crore in the third quarter of its 2008 fiscal year.

Those earnings are down 56.7% from the company’s earnings in the same period of the 2007 fiscal year.

Excluding exceptional items, earnings were down 10%.

In the first nine months of the year, the company earned Rs. 11,733 crore (U.S. $2.4 billion) after-tax, down 24.5%.

State-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. expects to commence operations at its Huizhou refinery by March, company insiders said.

Construction at the 240,000 b/d facility, located in China’s southern Guangdong province, is complete and essentially ready to go online, but due to weakened demand will likely be further delayed.

The $3.2 billion project was originally slated to go online in October 2008, but bad weather forced plans to be pushed back after winter ice storms and heavy summer rainfall prevented timely equipment delivery, CNOOC officials have said.

South Korea’s largest refiner said last week that the sharp decline in global oil prices and weak refining margins drove SK Energy Corp. to major net losses for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Also to blame was plunging demand for petroleum products as well as hefty foreign exchange losses on the South Korean won.

The company posted a net loss of KRW471.8 billion between October and December 2008; the comparable period from 2007 saw a profit of KRW12.7 billion.

In response to domestic sales that have been declining since 2004, Japan’s third-largest oil refiner, Idemitsu Kosan, announced it planned to double its capacity to export crude.

The company intends to increase export capacity to 103,000 b/d, with the bulk of those exports being shipped throughout Asia, primarily to China and India. This planned increase follows the 52,000 b/d in additional export capacity the company added in September 2008.

Construction is set to begin in 2009 on a new refinery in the western Mangistau region of Kazakhstan.

The Caspian Sea oil refinery is slated for completion in 2012 and would produce approximately 20,000 b/d.

Iraq is seeking foreign companies to bid on a $1 billion contract to build and install a fluid catalytic cracker unit at the Baiji refinery, Reuters reported.

The refinery’s general director hopes that a new FCC unit would not only supply enough gasoline for domestic needs, but would also allow the refinery to eventually export some gasoline.

State oil company Saudi Aramco and French oil giant Total are looking to reduce the cost of their planned 400,000 b/d joint venture refinery in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, by $1.2 billion.

Last year, the company’s decided to postpone the $12 billion project in order to cut costs.

French integrated oil giant Total plans to spend €120 million (U.S. $159 million) on a maintenance project at its refinery in Donges, France.

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is one of three independent directors appointed to the main board of TNK-BP.

Also joining the board are James Leng, chairman designate of Rio Tinto, and Alexander Shokhim, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

BP and Alfa-Access Renova, each of which owns 50% of TNK-BP agreed to appoint the three independent directors to avoid the risk of deadlock BP and AAR each have four members on the 11 person board.

Chinese state oil company Sinopec could make a bid for a stake in Spanish integrated oil company Repsol.

Sinopec is looking to buy the 20% Repsol stake owned by Madrid-based construction company Sacyr Vallehermoso.

However, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has previously said that Repsol needs to remain under Spanish management.

Turkish fuel retailer Turcas said plans for a $4 billion refinery have merely been postponed amid tight credit markets, denying media reports that quote its Chairman Erdal Aksoy as saying the project is cancelled.

The planned 200,000 b/d refinery, set to be built on the Mediterranean coast in the Turkish port city of Ceyhan, is a joint venture with Socar, the state-owned Azeri oil company.

Sasol announced Jan. 19 that it disclosed results of anti-trust violations to the South African government covering Sasol Nitro, Sasol Gas and Sasol Oil.

The voluntary disclosure aims to reduce the size of resulting fines.

“A finding of unlawful conduct under the Competition Act is more probable in the Phosphoric Acid investigation and in respect of one of the complaints in the Nutri-Flo matter,” Sasol admitted.

Foster Wheeler announced recently that its British-based subsidiary, Foster Wheeler Energy Limited, received a two-year contract extension to provide basic design, engineering, procurement and construction management at Shell’s Stanlow Manufacturing Complex in the United Kingdom.