- Key Market Prices
- WTI Sets New High for 2011; Settling at US$92.19/bbl
- Public Policy
- U.S. Congressional Probe Slams Use of Diesel Fuel in Oil, Gas ‘Fracking’ Operations
- Queensland Kills Cougar’s Kingaroy UCG Project
- Margins & Economics
- NYMEX WTI Futures, Options Contracts Set New Record
- NYMEX WTI Advances; ICE Brent Reaches US$101/bbl
- Indian Government Partly Covers Refiner Losses on Diesel, LPG, Kero Sales
- Fuels & Processing
- Chevron to Build Lubricants Plant at its Mississippi Refinery
- Power Failure at Navajo Refinery Blamed on Utility
- PetroChina Bids US$1 Billion for Trading, Refining JV with INEOS
- GE Announces Multiple Project Awards at Its Annual Meeting in Italy
- GE Turbine Makes LNG Export Cleaner, More Efficient
- Neste Oil Contradicts Greenpeace on ‘Evil Corporation’ Claims
- China Government: 2011 Energy Demand to Grow at Slower Pace
Fuels & Processing
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Chevron to Build Lubricants Plant at its Mississippi Refinery
Chevron Corp. January 31 announced that Chevron Lubricants will begin construction of a lubricants manufacturing facility at the company’s Pascagoula, Miss., refinery. The US$1.4-billion Pascagoula Base Oil Project (PBOP) is projected to generate about 1,000 jobs over the next two years of construction and about 20 permanent positions once the facility is operating. Construction is scheduled to be completed by year-end 2013.
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Power Failure at Navajo Refinery Blamed on Utility
Holly Corp., an independent petroleum refiner based in Dallas, said a power failure that occurred January 26 at its Navajo refinery in Artesia, N.M., was due to power supply interruption from its local utility.
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PetroChina Bids US$1 Billion for Trading, Refining JV with INEOS
Chinese state-owned oil major PetroChina has submitted a US$1 billion bid for a joint-venture refining agreement with British petrochemicals firm INEOS.
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GE Announces Multiple Project Awards at Its Annual Meeting in Italy
At GE’s Oil & Gas Annual Meeting in Florence, Italy, that started January 31, the company announced a number of project awards.
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GE Turbine Makes LNG Export Cleaner, More Efficient
Florence, Italy – New GE gas turbine technologies applied at liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals can boost efficiencies by more than one-third. That could save enough fuel to ship at least one extra LNG cargo annually, according to one industry executive.
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Neste Oil Contradicts Greenpeace on ‘Evil Corporation’ Claims
Neste Oil on January 28 contradicted claims by Greenpeace that Neste is wrecking the environment by using palm oil for biofuels.
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China Government: 2011 Energy Demand to Grow at Slower Pace
China’s National Energy Administration announced January 28 that domestic energy demand will continue to grow in 2011 but at a slower pace than in recent years.
Feature
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Marine Emissions Scrubbing: Solutions Emerging to Avoid Fuel-Oil Conversion
Promoters of seawater or freshwater marine diesel stack emissions scrubbing see an opportunity for ship owners to avoid the high cost of switching from relatively cheap high-sulfur heavy bunker fuel to costlier (but much cleaner) marine gasoil (MGO) or marine diesel oil (MDO) for upcoming International Maritime Organization (IMO) Marpol Annex-6 emissions compliance.
Key Market Prices
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WTI Sets New High for 2011; Settling at US$92.19/bbl
Transportation & Logistics
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Improving Fuel Economy for New Cars by 50% by 2050 is ‘Achievable:’ Report
The Global Fuel Economy Initiative’s targets to improve average fuel economy by 50% for new cars by 2030 and for the entire global light duty vehicle fleet by the same amount by 2050 (50 by 50) is achievable using existing cost effective technologies, a new report commissioned by the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) has confirmed.
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CNG Linked to ‘Extremely High’ Emissions of Toxic Carbonyls
India’s leading environmental groups and the government’s Supreme Court years ago forced the massive conversion of public transit vehicles in major cities (including the capital, Delhi) from diesel to compressed natural gas (CNG) supposedly to protect the public against “toxic” diesel emissions.
Margins & Economics
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NYMEX WTI Futures, Options Contracts Set New Record
Trading volume for NYMEX light sweet crude futures and options contracts reached new records on January 28, according to Chicago-based CME Group, Inc.
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NYMEX WTI Advances; ICE Brent Reaches US$101/bbl
NYMEX light sweet crude for March delivery settled at US$92.19 per barrel (/bbl), up $2.85 on January 31, as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East continued a seventh straight day.
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Indian Government Partly Covers Refiner Losses on Diesel, LPG, Kero Sales
The government of India announced January 31 that it will provide Rs. 8,000 crore (US$1.7 billion) in cash compensation to state-owned Indian Oil Corp. (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (HPCL) for selling diesel fuel, kerosene and LPG below cost because of government price controls.
Public Policy
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U.S. Congressional Probe Slams Use of Diesel Fuel in Oil, Gas ‘Fracking’ Operations
U.S. Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) on January 31 unveiled a joint letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) detailing possible illegal injection of diesel fuel underground as part of oil and gas hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) operations.
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Queensland Kills Cougar’s Kingaroy UCG Project
Kate Jones, Queensland Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, announced January 28 that Cougar Energy will not be allowed to proceed with its underground coal gasification (UCG) project at Kingaroy, Australia.
