September 16, 2020:

According to Asia- Plus website, the launch of a large oil refinery built in the «Dangara» Free Economic  Zone (FEZ) has been postponed due to lack of raw materials under acceptable conditions. Noting that the enterprise is completely ready for work and all the necessary infrastructure already exists, - the deputy head of this FEZ Safarali Taifurov said that the main problem is to provide this enterprise with crude oil. Taifurov stressed that at the moment negotiations are underway on the supply of raw materials with companies from Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia. He added that the launch of the refinery depended on finding oil under acceptable conditions, which can ensure the efficient operation of the enterprise. Construction of the refinery with a design capacity of 1.2 million tons of oil per year, began in 2014. The enterprise was erected by the established Tajik-Chinese joint venture TK-oil, established by the Chinese company Dong Ying heli Investment and Development and the Tajik company “Hasan and Co”.

By IRNA

August 14, 2020:

enezuela’s fuel crisis is poised to deteriorate even further after one of its biggest refineries was halted over the weekend following a nearby oil spill. Petroleos de Venezuela SA’s El Palito refinery stopped producing gasoline after its fluid catalytic cracker was shut due to a malfunctioning valve, said union leader Ivan Freites. The refinery was producing about 20,000 barrels-a-day of the fuel when it was shut, he said. The crude and vacuum distillation units were also stopped, according to a person familiar with operations. The OPEC nation is already rationing fuel after the country’s biggest refineries suffered multiple breakdowns in recent weeks amid sweeping U.S. government sanctions that ban the sale of gasoline to the country. Restart efforts at the 140,000-barrel-a-day refinery are being complicated by an oil spill that happened Sunday near the facility, according to Freites. Heavy rains caused a ditch of crude and byproducts to spill over and reach the sea. The oil spill near El Palito is the second in recent weeks to befoul Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. Last month, crude began washing up on beaches in the Morrocoy national park, a popular tourist destination known for its pristine beaches and wildlife. The spill covers an area of about 8 kilometers (5 miles), said said Eduardo Klein, a marine ecologist at the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. “This is the worst oil spill in 24 years,” he said.Environmental minister Oswaldo Barbera said almost 6 kilometers of the spill have been cleaned in a Twitter post from Aug. 10. The source of the spill is still being investigated. A spokesperson for PDVSA declined to comment.

By Bloomberg

August 14, 2020:

The Philippine unit of Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday it will permanently shut one of the country’s two oil refineries, blaming a pandemic-led slump in margins, with other regional closures likely to follow, according to analysts. Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp said its 110,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Tabangao facility in Batangas province, which began operations in 1962, was no longer economically viable and would be turned into an import terminal. Singapore’s complex refining margin DUB-SIN-REF, the bellwether in measuring profitability at Asian refineries, has been mostly negative since March prompting many refiners to cut output or temporarily shutter operations. In the United States and Europe, refiners are permanently halting processing or weighing lasting shutdowns.

By Reuters

August 14, 2020:

Hours before a community meeting to mull the best use of money from Suncor Energy’s $9 million legal settlement for air pollution problems at its oil refinery north of Denver, a boiler inside the refinery failed Thursday, leading to flaring and elevated emissions that prompted an emergency response. Suncor managers notified Colorado health officials and local leaders that the company was conducting air monitoring to measure pollutants in nearby communities after the event “resulted in flaring and emissions exceedances.” “As we stabilize and bring the units back online, there may be additional flaring and emissions,” a Suncor bulletin said. The refinery along Sand Creek in Commerce City has been plagued with pollution problems, and the evening meeting was designed to hear residents’ views on possible environmental improvement projects using a $2.6 million share of the money Suncor paid the state following prior violations of pollution limits. Suncor’ runs the refinery on an 80-acre industrial site. It is one of about 65 refineries in the nation that process crude oil. The Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment sets limits on pollution as part of Suncor’s operating permit. Suncor emits more than 800,000 tons a year of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and other pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, ozone-forming volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and particulates, according to state records The company is required to report problems that lead to elevated pollution, and state air quality regulators for more than seven years have sought penalties for elevated emissions of sulfur dioxide and other toxic gases and repeatedly have ordered Suncor to correct deficiencies.

CDPHE officials on Thursday didn’t immediately respond to Denver Post queries. Suncor’s manager did not respond to an email. “It is ironic that we have yet another incident on the very day that Commerce City is hosting a virtual meeting on how to use the SEP (supplemental environmental projects) funds from Suncor. … What else can we do?” Adams County Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio said. “We need our need our local governments, neighborhoods, state regulators and Suncor to shift from responding to problems to preventing problems,” O’Dorisio said. “The health and safety of our children depends ending this constant cycle of problem-apology-repeat.” In March, Colorado officials announced the legal settlement to “reset” a pattern of problems at the refinery. For more than a decade, residents in surrounding Denver, Commerce City and unincorporated Adams County neighborhoods have been raising concerns. A couple weeks after that announcement, an equipment failure at the refinery led to a burst of hydrogen sulfide and other pollution, triggering a company alarm and forcing a partial shutdown. State officials said at the time said they’d investigate and possibly seek future penalties, and they ordered Suncor to hire a third-party consultant to determine root causes of repeated equipment failures. It was unclear whether that analysis was done and what it concluded.

By The Denver Post

August 13, 2020:

ExxonMobil’s plans to restart its offshore drilling platforms in Santa Barbara County and truck that oil through California have been undermined by two unrelated announcements. Opponents responded today by calling on the company to abandon the project and decommission its offshore operations. Santa Barbara County planning staff yesterday released a report opposing the use of State Route 166 to truck oil to Kern County, saying that use of this route would increase the likelihood of accidents and oil spills. Then Phillips 66 announced late yesterday that it will close its Santa Maria Refinery and related pipelines by 2023, shutting down the other option for ExxonMobil to get its offshore oil to a refinery.

“We call on ExxonMobil to withdraw its risky oil project,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, which represents Get Oil Out! and Santa Barbara County Action Network. “ExxonMobil’s proposal was already ill-conceived from an environmental and climate justice point of view, and now it is unsuitable in light of Phillips’ plans to convert its refinery to renewable fuels. There is even less reason now for ExxonMobil to put our coast and communities at risk.”

Exxon’s trucking plan called for up to 70 oil tanker trucks per day on coastal Highway 101 and Route 166, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission is scheduled to hold hearings on the project on Sept. 2 and Sept. 9 before deciding whether to recommend approval, but those hearings may be postponed by the new developments.

“This is great news for California communities, motorists and wildlife threatened by ExxonMobil’s dangerous oil trucking plan. Exxon should follow Phillips 66’s lead and end its dirty energy operations on California’s Central Coast,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “With the oil industry reeling, it’s time to end offshore drilling along this beautiful, bountiful coastline, not revive it.” ExxonMobil’s platforms were shut down in 2015 after the Plains All American Pipeline ruptured and spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil along the California coast. The company proposed to restart its platforms, load its offshore oil onto tanker trucks at its Las Flores Canyon processing facility, and truck up to 470,400 gallons of oil per day to facilities in Kern County and Santa Maria.  California suffers hundreds of oil-truck incidents a year, and many result in oil spills. There were 216 trucking accidents along ExxonMobil’s proposed route from 2015 to 2020, California Highway Patrol data show, resulting in nine deaths and 92 injuries. A tanker truck crashed off Highway 166 on March 21, spilling more than 4,500 gallons of oil into the Cuyama River above Twitchell Reservoir. More reactions from groups that are part of the coalition opposing the ExxonMobil trucking plan: “Exxon’s oil trucking plan was already extremely controversial, with cities of San Luis Obispo, Goleta, Santa Barbara and Carpinteria all passing resolutions calling for denial of the project,” said Katie Davis, chair of the Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter. “Given the pending closure of the Santa Maria pump station and even longer and more dangerous route, it’s time to take trucking oil off the table entirely.” University of California at Santa Barbara’s Associated Students Environmental Affairs Board and Environmental Justice Alliance released a joint comment: “As UCSB students, we are glad to see our region move one step further from fossil fuel infrastructure that endangers all of our communities. We are happy to see that Phillips 66 recognizes that there is no future for drilling on the Central Coast, and hope that Exxon will quickly recognize the futility of its oil trucking proposal. It’s time to transition away from fossil fuels and toward a just, sustainable, and equitable future.” “The exploitation of oil in the Chumash homelands has brought untold economic, environmental, and social devastation to our peoples for well over a century,” said Alicia Cordero, First Nations program officer for Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation. “We are heartened to finally see communities all throughout Santa Barbara County standing with us against these injustices while facing down the last gasps of the dying local oil industry.” The coalition opposing ExxonMobil’s trucking plan includes Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation, 350 Santa Barbara, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Defense Center, UCSB Environmental Justice Alliance, UCSB Environmental Affairs Board, Food and Water Action, GOO!, SBCAN, Sierra Club’s Los Padres Chapter, UCSB Academic Senator Esmeralda Quintero-Cubillan, Surfrider Foundation Santa Barbara County Chapter, Los Padres ForestWatch.

By Biologicaldiversity.org