September 2, 2016:

Projects that monitor air quality around the Torrance refinery, improve the emergency alert system or provide greater outreach to residents will receive priority for almost $2.8 million in funding from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.  The agency’s governing board approved issuing a request for proposals for those kinds of projects at a meeting Friday in Diamond Bar.  Anyone can propose a potential project, said Chief Operating Officer Jill Whynot in an interview after the meeting.  “We wrote the RFP very generally so we could basically consider any suggestions community members may have,” she said. “There’s very little restriction on the money.

It just needs to be spent on projects that would benefit the residents of this area.”  The deadline for proposals is 1 p.m. Nov. 2.  Details are available at the AQMD website at aqmd.gov.  The $2,7771,250 available comes from penalties ExxonMobil incurred in the wake of a February 2015 refinery explosion and subsequent dirtier-than-normal restart.  The announced prioritization of the money came as a relief to residents, who feared the city might attempt to siphon off the funds for pet “green” projects.  “Spending the funds to purchase electric vehicles for the city and solar panel-covered parking at City Hall is stretching the stated intent of using the funds to benefit the residents and provide projects that will result in public health and quality-of-life-improvements,” said John Bailey, board president of the Southeast Torrance Homeowners Association.  “We asked for a more robust siren alert system that could be heard in Southeast Torrance because, if a major accident involved hydrofluoric acid, it could impact our area,” he added. “SETHA residents cannot hear the siren during the monthly testing.”  Still, Sally Hayati, president of the Torrance Refinery Action Alliance, said the money and request for proposals were insufficient compensation for the environmental harm the plant causes.  “Our community pays the price for excess emissions in short- and long-term health impacts and in increased fear and worry,” she said. “As recompense, the community is now being given less than $3 million worth of environmental projects, without being given a direct say in how it is spent.  “Projects funded by these funds can’t repair health effects from excess emissions that have occurred and won’t reduce future emissions,” she added. “Only improved and rigorous enforcement of strict emissions standards can do that, with far greater fines, other deterrence measures such as temporary shutdowns, better enforcement budgets, and the political will to reduce pollution.”  The AQMD’s governing board will decide what projects to fund at its January meeting.  However, more money for other projects also may be available. The AQMD has $18.5 million in penalties imposed on ExxonMobil for excessive flaring at the refinery over the past year. 

If there is not enough money for proposed projects in the initial almost $2.8 million, the other source could be tapped for eligible projects.  Still, Maureen Mauk, co-founder of Families Lobbying Against Refinery Exposure, said the board’s decision Friday should be considered a victory for local environmental activists.  “Over 40 FLARE members took the time to craft letters to the AQMD and attend last week’s community roundtable discussions” hosted by the AQMD, she said. “Progress can be made when the citizens come together at a grass-roots level to initiate change.  “It will be imperative for the residents of Torrance and the South Bay community to continue to keep pressure on those individuals and agencies that we have empowered to ensure our safety and well-being,” she added.

By Daily Breeze

September 1, 2016:

WHITING, Ind. (AP) - BP plans to spend millions of dollars on pollution-reducing equipment at its refinery in northwest Indiana to help meet a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandate.  The (Northwest Indiana) Times reports (http://bit.ly/2cueAj6 ) BP Whiting Refinery plant manager Don Porter told the Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday that construction will begin next year on a new hydrotreater unit, which uses hydrogen to remove unwanted chemicals such as sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen and halides from gasoline.  He says the project on the shore of Lake Michigan will lead to hundreds of construction jobs.  The announcement comes three years after BP did $4.2 billion expansion and upgrade at the facility. The company has said the goal is to have the new hydrotreater up and running by 2020.

By The Washington Times

August 31, 2016:

Saudi Aramco is negotiating with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to build a refinery in China, Aramco chairman Khalid al-Falih, who is also Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, said while on a visit to China.  Saudi Arabian Oil Co, or Aramco, hopes to reach a deal to build the Yunnan refinery this year, al-Falih said on Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV.  Commenting on demand for oil, al-Falih said that the Chinese demand remains “very healthy”. ADVERTISEMENT x  Al-Falih also said that China had expressed interest in opening its stock markets to Aramco when the oil giant, valued at around US$2 trillion, carries out an initial public offering (IPO) to sell 5 percent of its equity expected to reap much as US$100 billion. 

Although Angola’s crude oil exports to China surprisingly topped both Saudi Arabia’s and Russia’s for the month of July, in the first seven months of the year, the Saudis topped the list of China suppliers of crude, with an average daily rate of 1.05 million bpd. This gave the desert kingdom a 14-percent market share in China’s oil market, eking out 0.4 percent more than Russia’s exports to China.  Moreover, giant and established state-controlled Chinese companies such as CNPC may potentially benefit from the recently-announced attempt by Chinese authorities to impose stricter control on taxes paid by independent refineries, the so-called teapots. According to analysts, the clampdown may result in slowed short-term crude import plans by the teapots, although it is unlikely to lead to substantial impacts in the longer run.  Following complaints by established state-owned refinery giants that independents were not paying enough taxes, the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said last week it could ban companies found to be avoiding taxes from importing crude oil for up to 12 months or in some cases, cancel their licenses to import crude.  The market anticipates that the final result of the tightening of the tax control would depend on how strict China would be with teapots. 

By Tsvetana Paraskova For Oilprice.com

August 31, 2016:

LyondellBassel has put its Pasadena refinery up for sale. The sales process is expected to begin in earnest after Labor Day.  The 700 acre facility produces 263,776 barrels per day and employs more than 1,300 people.  The refinery is able to process a wide variety of crude petroleum, from sweet, light crude to heavier grades from Canada. A previous sale offering in 2005 brought offers between $5 billion and $6 billion.

By Pasadena Patch

August 31, 2016:

The BP Whiting Refinery has secured company approval to build another hydrotreater, a massive project likely to boost the Region’s economy.  BP Whiting Refinery plant manager Don Porter told the Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday at Dynasty Banquets in Hammond the oil company is now doing the engineering for a project that would result in hundreds of construction jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. Construction would begin next year and continue for a few years.  The new hydrotreater would help the BP Whiting Refinery meet a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandate to ensure that gasoline has less than 10 parts per million of sulfur, instead of the current standard of 30 parts per million.  BP in December 2013 finished work on a multiyear, $4.2 billion modernization project at the refinery that was widely credited with propping up Northwest Indiana’s economy during the Great Recession.  “Virtually every industrial market in the Midwest was struggling,” Construction Advancement Foundation Executive Director Dewey Pearman said. “This was the one market that got through that period.” 

As many as 14,000 union tradesmen worked on the project, filling local hotel rooms.  “It really helped hotels,” said Chris Cash, general manager of the Ramada by the Indiana Toll Road in Hammond. “All our employees are local and most live in Hammond. We’d appreciate it if you (BP) did more.”  The modernization project, which already included a new hydrotreater, also meant a windfall of property tax revenue for Whiting, Hammond and East Chicago. E.C. Mayor Anthony Copeland estimates it increased the city’s assessed valuation by $500 million.  “It’s going to mean millions of dollars in ensuring years,” he said. “It’s coming down at a moment it’s needed.”

BP has invested $90 billion in the United States over the last decade, and generated $135 billion in economic activity in the U.S. in 2014. That included $21 billion paid to 7,500 vendors. BP converted the Whiting Refinery, its biggest and the largest inland refinery in the United States, to refine more heavy crude oil because it’s about $15 a barrel cheaper to purchase, making the refinery more profitable.  The number of refineries in the United States has shrunk from around 350 to about 130 nationally, so the remaining ones are bigger and more competitive, Porter said.  The new hydrotreater is one of several projects underway at the former Standard Oil Refinery on the shore of Lake Michigan. BP for instance is building a new fire suppression building in Hammond and recently installed a new dissolved nitrogen flotation unit in its wastewater treatment plant to remove dissolved organics in the wastewater.  The new equipment initially malfunctioned, discharging five times the permitted limit of total suspended solids of industrial waste into Lake Michigan.  “We had difficulty starting that up, and I want to apologize,” Porter said. “That’s not what we strive to do, but we got that straightened out. Now it operates very well, more efficiently than before.”

By nwi.com