The Diesel Technology Forum April 14 issued the following statement in response to the Center for American Progress analysis advocating natural gas use in heavy vehicles (see link to source document here.)

ClearFuels Technology, Inc. officials announced April 15 the signing of a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy to receive its first US$7.7 million of a $22.6 million grant award to construct its biomass gasifier at Rentech’s Energy Technology Center.

Sapphire Energy officials announced April 15 that veteran oil executive Dan Sajkowski has joined the company as senior director, downstream technology. With more than 24 years with BP (Amoco), Sajkowski brings his experience in the oil and refining industry to the burgeoning field of algae-based fuel.

One of the obstacles facing broader adoption of supposedly “green” electric cars is the relatively high carbon footprint of many thermal power-generation technologies.

Petrobras expects to end maintenance on its Replan refinery in May, boosting capacity by 30,000 barrels per day (b/d), a company director said on April 14, according to Reuters.

Massachusetts-based General Compression (GC) officials announced April 14 that they’ve signed an agreement with ConocoPhillips to develop compressed air energy storage projects, beginning with a pilot project in Texas.

Shenhua and Sasol have completed a coal-to-liquids (CTL) plant feasibility study, upping the planned capacity to 93,000 barrels/day (b/d) rather than an initially planned 80,000 b/d.

Private-sector refinery-marketer Essar Oil is losing up to 40% of its retail sales to state-owned oil companies because of India’s price controls, according to a report last week from Religare news service (India).