U.S. refiner Valero started selling E85 ethanol at one of its Valero Corner Stores in San Antonio, according to a recent report by CSP Daily News.

A California-based ethanol and biodiesel producer will utilize grants totaling US$11 million to build and operate the 75 retail alternative fuel stations throughout the state over the next two years, the San Jose Business Journal reported on Aug. 31.

Wood Mackenzie analysts estimate world reserves of unconventional gas at approximately 1,895 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). Regions such as the Middle East, Latin America, and Australia are expected to contain modest amounts of shale gas – 25 Tcf, 13 Tcf, and 78 Tcf respectively. Medium strength resource potential exists in Africa (83 Tcf), Europe (145 Tcf), and Asia (203 Tcf), but North America is the current frontrunner in this resource area, holding the lion's share at 1,348 Tcf.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) is recognizing a delay in the completion of its new crude unit at the Changling Refinery, according to a report by Bloomberg on September 2. The completion of the unit is facing weather delays after periods of heavy rain, according to an unnamed refinery official cited in the report. Construction has been set back, and thus, so is the startup.

Sinopec president Wang Tianpu announced September 2 that his company will not support various schemes promoting methanol-gasoline blends in China.

EOG Resources Inc. is following the trend of many E&P companies by increasing its focus on its liquids production with the bulk of this focused on oil and 25% being natural gas liquids (NGL). The company announced during its conference call to discuss 2Q earnings that it believes its holdings in the Leonard/Upper Bone Spring/Avalon shale play have a reserve potential of 65 million barrels of oil equivalent.

The U.S. rig count rose by 47% in August to almost 1,000 compared to the 672 rigs in July 2009, primarily due to horizontal drilling in shale plays by independent operators with much of this increase focused on liquids-rich plays such as the Eagle Ford, according to a recent Natural Gas Weekly Kaleidoscope report from Barclays Capital.

India's state run oil company Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) is homing in on plans to build a 9 million ton per year refinery (180,000 barrels per day) on the west side of India, according to a September 1 report at Bloomberg. The sites being looked over are within the Raigad district of Maharashtra. Yet the plan is to double its capacity at a later date, according to the report, in order to ramp production here to compensate for any future space constraints at HPCL’s Mumbai Refinery.

According to a September 2 report by The Jakarta Post, Pertamina received a study suggesting that its planned US$3 billion Bojanegara refinery is not economically viable. Pertamina spokesman Mochammad Harun relayed that information, but added within the report that "we are not saying we will drop the project as we still need to discuss this with our partners.”