July 14, 2012:

SOUTH KITSAP — Yukon Harbor has provided overflow parking and storm shelter for Seattle-bound ships since 1967. Freighters and oil tankers dropping anchor between Manchester and Blake Island is nothing new. There have just been more of them lately. There are a couple reasons, explained Mark Ashley, director of the Coast Guard's Vessel Traffic Service (VTS), which oversees Puget Sound anchorages. Eastern Washington has been producing bumper grain crops, resulting in more Far East-bound freighters loading up in Seattle. And a fire Feb. 17 knocked the BP Cherry Point refinery near Blaine offline for three months, stacking up tankers until it restarted. The most recent Yukon Harbor visitor was the HS Carmen, a 794-foot-long crude oil tanker. The ship, registered in Liberia and owned and managed by German corporations, anchored while waiting to off-load its crude oil at Cherry Point, then returned to await orders, Ashley said. It departed Thursday morning.

Oil tankers have stayed at Yukon Harbor when northern anchorages are full. This time, however, Carmen returned here instead of remaining up north so it wouldn't interrupt refinery operations, Ashley said. Yukon Harbor is generally used when Seattle-area anchorages are full or during stormy winter weather, Ashley said. There are five anchorage areas in Seattle that can accommodate a total of nine ships. Yukon Harbor can handle six ships for up to a month, though it's rare to see more than one at a time. In winter, when Seattle's Elliott Bay and Smith Cove are exposed to prevailing storms out of the southwest, ships are sometimes sent directly to Yukon Harbor. "We use that area because it's very well protected," Ashley said. "If you're stuck away behind Blake Island, it's one of the best places you can be in Puget Sound. It's a very safe place." Overall, there are 17 general anchorage areas in Puget Sound for commercial ships of at least 200 feet. Prior permission is required from the VTS, but there is no charge. Permits can be requested for stays longer than 30 days. The ships' pilots decide where they want to drop anchor and how much chain to put out. VTS radars note the vessel's swing circle. If the ship drags beyond the circle, it sets off an alarm, and a response is begun. Inspections, alarms and radar assure vessels operate and anchor safely, which limits the chance of an oil spill, one of VTS' primary missions. If a spill does occur, the Coast Guard has contingency plans with other government and private agencies to quickly respond, and it keeps equipment staged all around Puget Sound to facilitate it.

Residents have complained about the ships' bright lights, noise and potential pollution. "Environmental concerns are on top of a lot of people's lists," said Dave Kimball of Manchester, who suggeted a neighborhood ship watch. "What is being discharged that we don't know about? The perception we all have here is they're not following the environmental rules as closely as we'd like them to." Bud Larsen of the Manchester Citizens Advisory Committee, who lives near the boat ramp, said the ships "bother" some neighbors. They're not much to look at, light up the night and prompt worry over whether they're dumping waste into the bay. J.B. Hall of Yukon Harbor Road doesn't mind having the ships nearby. Some might object to the light and sound from the vessels, but he says "white noise" from generators and ventilation isn't very noticeable.

The ships can't discharge greywater — from activities like laundry, dishwashing and bathing — or blackwater, from toilets, the VTS' Ashley said. The Coast Guard conducts random and scheduled inspections of the vessels. "Whenever we have a ship go over there to anchor, we ask them to be courteous and good neighbors of the folks in Manchester and those who have waterfront over there because we know there have been some concerns expressed for noise or light that might detract from living on the beach," Ashley said. "Living on the beach in Puget Sound, that comes with seeing ships and vessels."

Conplaints and concerns can be directed to U.S. Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound at (206) 217-6200.

By Kitsap Sun

July 14, 2012:

Sunoco Inc restarted a vacuum tower unit at the Girard Point section of its 330,000 barrel per day Philadephia refinery on Wednesday, according to a filing with city environmental regulators. In a filing made with the City of Philadelphia Air Management Service, the company said the T-5 vacuum tower at the 137 crude unit was started up on July 11. A vacuum tower is used to process heavier feedstocks and crudes into lighter petroleum products.  On July 2, Sunoco and Carlyle Group said they had formed a joint venture -- Philadelphia Energy Solutions -- to keep the refinery operating as Sunoco looks to exit the refining business. The plant is the largest on the East Coast and the longest continuously operating refinery in the U.S.

By Reuters

July 14, 2012:

SANTA FE, N.M. — A Texas-based oil refining company has agreed to pay New Mexico $444,000 in penalties to settle emissions violations at its plant near Gallup. The New Mexico Environment Department announced the settlement with Western Refining of El Paso this week. The department claims the company violated state air pollution standards by allowing excess sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants to be emitted at the Ciniza refinery. The violations took place between July 2009 and March 2012. The settlement also calls for Western Refining to make upgrades and infrastructure improvements at the plant over the next several years. Western also operates a refinery in El Paso and has retail service stations and convenience stores in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and Colorado.

By Theeagle.com

July 14, 2012:

LIMA — The message was simple Saturday at Faurot Park — we will outlast you. That was the message from hundreds of workers, family members and other supporters of United Steelworkers union Local 624 who have been on strike since May 25 against Husky Energy Lima Refinery. “For some reason, this greedy, control-seeking company thought this union would break. I'm not sure why, but they were wrong,” Paul Moss, a union member, said. “They thought they were the Goliaths and that they know what's best for us. But we know as a union that unless we stand up and fight we would not have a say in the already declining quality of life we have as refinery workers. We refinery workers put our lives on the line every day we walk in that plant.” Workers have cited safety, working conditions and the use of vacation time as the sticking points in negotiations. Negotiations, union representatives said, have not been in good faith to resolve the standoff, but have been used in an attempt to break the union.

“I met with that company when they first came here — they've not changed. I reached out to that company after they forced you out,” said Gary Beevers, United Steelworkers International vice president in charge of the National Oil Bargaining Program, said. “You know what they told me? Their executives think it should be handled at the bargaining table in Lima, Ohio. I said, ‘Well, I don't disagree with you but it ain't gonna be handled at the bargaining table in Lima, Ohio, if you keep sending idiots to the table.'” Clarence Roller, a retiree who worked 38 years at the refinery, said it all boils down to quality-of-life issues. “They think if they pay you, they own you. That's not the way unions work,” Roller said. “We believe in each other. We believe an honest day's work gets an honest day's pay. I gotta believe they know what they're doing. We always had a saying out there, they can't get any dumber but they kept proving us wrong.”

Mike Edelbrock, president of Local 624, said there are fewer than a dozen issues that are holding up reaching a deal with the company. He said figuring out what it's going to take to conclude a deal with the company is the million-dollar question. “We've modified our proposals. We had 49 issues in the beginning and we're down to nine,” Edelbrock said. “The company had 26 but affected 62 pieces of the contract. We've modified to try to accommodate them. They're looking for flexibility. We're really having heartburn with the concessions because they've made quite a bit of money and to offer concessions now is hard to do yet we've been willing to do it at times yet the company's come back wanting more.”

By Limaohio.com

July 14, 2012:

Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and South Korea's LG Chem Ltd enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a joint venture (JV) for the construction of a petrochemical facility near its Kochi refinery. According to the BPCL, around Rs 40-60 billion investment will be required for the petrochemical plant, which is expected to complete in the next 4-year. BPCL said, The petrochemical plant would be set up in a JV mode at an additional investment of Rs 4,000 to 6,000 crores (Rs 40 billion-60 billion) adjacent to the Kochi refinery and is slated for completion in next four years dovetailed with the refinery project. The company is planning to invest more than 140 billion in the next five years to expand its Kochi refinery and intends to establish a Petrochemical Fluid Catalytic Cracker (PFCC) which would generate 500 thousand metric tons per annum (TMTPA) of propylene and would provide BPCL a launching pad for diversification in petrochemical.

By equities.com