June 13, 2012:

HARRISBURG - Gov. Tom Corbett said Tuesday he has heard that Ohio and West Virginia are still trying to lure away a petrochemical refinery planned for western Pennsylvania, as he presses lawmakers to approve a $1.7 billion tax credit for the project before they leave Harrisburg for the summer. Meanwhile, many of Corbett's other end-of-session priorities are stalled or moving slowly - even in a Legislature controlled by his fellow Republicans - and GOP legislative leaders are resisting his efforts to pare down their spending plans and put more money in reserve for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Closed-door budget negotiations between Corbett and top GOP lawmakers continued Tuesday, with no major progress reported. The recently revealed tax credit being sought by Corbett for the refinery, which would be built by a subsidiary of Netherlands-based oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC, would be the biggest taxpayer-paid incentives package in Pennsylvania history, lawmakers say. Corbett would not say how crucial it is to the project that the Legislature approve the tax credit in the next three weeks. If approved, the 25-year tax credit would take effect in 2017. "I'm not going to get into that," Corbett said. "There's certain things I can't go into, there's a confidentiality agreement (with Shell). But I believe it is important that we show that we're moving forward with this to give them the opportunity to bring the petrochemical industry to Pennsylvania."

Corbett bills the project as the reindustrialization of the state. But he warned that "from what I hear" Ohio and West Virginia were still trying to lure the Shell facility after losing the initial bidding round to Pennsylvania. Ohio and West Virginia also had offered Shell substantial tax incentives for the plant. In March, Shell announced it had picked a site on the banks of the Ohio River, near Monaca, about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The company said it signed a land option agreement so it can further evaluate the site.

The Legislature has a full plate for June and, with most lawmakers up for re-election in November, voting session days in September and October could be light. Republican leaders have been meeting privately almost daily for the past week with Corbett as they try to put the wraps on a no-new-taxes $27 billion-plus budget. As school districts around the state prepare to lay off thousands of teachers for a second straight year, a key point of the budget negotiation revolves around the extent to which lawmakers are able to wipe out Corbett's proposed funding cuts for education. Corbett has tried to tamp down spending now to save money to pay the state's spiraling costs for public employee pensions in the future.

Part of the debate involves whether to plug holes in the state budget by transferring cash from programs that benefit from dedicated sources of outside money, said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre. "It's been pretty good. No one's really drawn a line in the sand and said, 'It's this or nothing,'" Corman said. Meanwhile, Corbett's efforts to substantially change public school policy - easing the creation of charter schools, using taxpayer money for vouchers to send children to private schools and broadening the criteria for teacher performance evaluations - appears stuck. "The big ones, the ones that are supposedly controversial, are uncertain right now," said Senate Education Committee Chairman Jeff Piccola, R-Dauphin.

Piccola, a key proponent for expanding charter schools and creating school vouchers, also panned an emerging idea from voucher proponents in the House of Representatives to use the state's $75 million Educational Improvement Tax Credit as a model for a $100 million alternative to Piccola's voucher legislation. Piccola called the bill "fiscally irresponsible" and questioned where the money for it could be found at a time when a school district like Harrisburg's is so financially strapped it is considering dropping kindergarten and athletics.

By The Associated Press

June 13, 2012:

U.S. Gulf Coast crude oils plunged after Motiva Enterprises LLC shut a new crude unit at the Port Arthur, Texas, refinery for as long as five months. Motiva, a joint venture between Saudi Arabian Oil Co. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc., will keep the 325,000-barrel-a-day unit closed to repair multiple deficiencies that surfaced during startup earlier this month, a person familiar with the plans said yesterday. The unit was part of a $10 billion expansion that made the Port Arthur refinery the largest in the U.S.

Poseidon’s premium to West Texas Intermediate weakened $4.50 to $7.50 a barrel at 10:45 a.m. in New York, the largest drop in a single day since May 26, 2010, when it fell $5.95, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Southern Green Canyon’s premium also narrowed $4.50 to $7.50 a barrel. Mars Blend’s premium lost $2.50 to $8.50 a barrel. The premium for Thunder Horse, a sour crude with lower sulfur content than Mars, Poseidon and Southern Green Canyon, narrowed $2.95 to $10.25 a barrel.

Light Louisiana Sweet’s premium to the U.S. benchmark lost 90 cents to $11.85 a barrel. Heavy Louisiana Sweet’s premium decreased $2.20 to $12.50 a barrel. Western Canada Select’s discount to WTI was unchanged at $25 a barrel. Syncrude’s discount was steady at $5.75. Bakken oil’s discount was unchanged at $10.50. Demand for the largest oil tankers may also weaken as Motiva keeps the Port Arthur crude unit closed, according to Arctic Securities ASA. About 75 very large crude carriers were booked to haul Persian Gulf oil to the U.S. in the first 22 weeks of 2012, a 50 percent jump from 2011 and the highest count on record since 2007, according to the Oslo-based investment bank.

By Bloomberg

June 13, 2012:

A small fire near a loading dock at the Total Petrochemicals 232,000 barrel-per-day Port Arthur, Texas refinery early Wednesday was doused in 15 minutes and had no apparent effect on operations, the fire department said. Company spokesman Tim Coffy termed the fire "non-operational" with no offsite impact. "Since the equipment was near a loading dock, there were no production units affected," Troy Irvine, public information officer at the Port Arthur fire department, said in an email. A bulldozer in the loading dock area was on fire when firefighters arrived and the cause appeared to be fuel leaking from a fuel line, Irvine said.The fire began about 3:20 a.m. local time Wednesday, according to a message on a community line.

The community line message did not identify any unit, but said there were no injuries to the plant's workers. The refinery produces transportation fuels, petcoke, aromatics and liquefied petroleum gas and ships most of its product east of the Rockies, according to its website.

By Reuters

June 13, 2012:

Phillips 66 on Wednesday reported a process upset at its joint-venture 146,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Borger, Texas, refinery, according to a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The incident happened around 7:08 p.m. local time Tuesday, the filing said. The Borger refinery is operated by Phillips in a 50-50 joint venture with Cenovus Energy Inc.

By Reuters

June 13, 2012:

Environmentalists from ‘Greenpeace’ were joined by experts, including former New Jersey Governor and EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, in calling for the end to foot-dragging in implementing safer processes at America’s chemical plants.  Governor Whitman said she planned to roll out rules for safer chem plant processes, but it was withdrawn by the Bush White House. Whitman says the original plan borne of the 9/11 attacks, included new rules generated on June 11th, 2002, requiring safer processes at dangerous chemical plants. Whitman says the rules would have been fully implemented by the year 2004. She says in the past ten years Washington has taken no action to better protect the public.

Whitman says, “this is an issue that I find just enormously frustrating and very, very troubling.” Whitman has written current EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, saying the enforcement of Clean Air Act authorities would help mitigate risks posed by dangerous chemical facilities. She says, “just imagine what would happen if a terrorist were to target these facilities.” She says one overturned truck carrying hazardous material can pose a risk to a whole community.

Also attending the teleconference calling for Washington to act were Bob Bostock, who was Whitman homeland security adviser, and Michael Wright, director of Health, Safety and the Environment for the United Steelworkers. He was part of an international team that traveled to Bhopal, India to investigate the 1964 chemical disaster at Union Carbide.

By nj1015.com