Officials with Kinder Morgan Energy Partners (KMP) announced Jan. 19 a terminal venture designed specifically to handle renewable fuels.

Valero Energy Corp. is exploring "strategic alternatives" for its Paulsboro, New Jersey, refinery, but the company will not confirm a Bloomberg report that it hired investment bank UBS AG to find a buyer, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Compressor trains awarded to Elliott Company for SATORP’s Jubail refinery in Saudi Arabia will serve a variety of applications. Compressor loads will include sour service, hydrogen service and refrigeration.

Infineum International Ltd. has made a number of changes to its senior leadership team that will become effective Feb.1.

Italy is set to build an oil refinery in Uganda, according to the Web site, New Vision (Uganda).

Downstream staff reductions have been recently announced by several refining organizations. However, there is speculation as to how these reduced staffing levels will affect plant turnarounds.

The 300,000-b/d Petrobras refinery to be completed in 2013 will be expanded to 600,000 b/d by 2015. With financial help from the Japanese government and Marubeni Corp., the US$20 billion project is purposed for export of refined product to Japan.

In the defense spending bill signed by U.S. President Barack Obama last month, US$3.9 million is earmarked for research on a HyMelt coal gasification technology being pursued by American Freedom Fuels.

Wilks Enterprise’s Infraspec VFA-IR spectrometer is now capable of measuring biodiesel in diesel fuel down to 0.05%, company representatives announced.