BPZ Energy Announces $50 Million 2011 Capital Expenditures Plan

BPZ Resources, Inc. announces the 2011 capital expenditures plan, approximating $50 million, for continued development of the Company’s assets in northwest Peru. The majority of the capital budget is expected to be spent on offshore Block Z-1, primarily for the design and construction of an additional production platform for the Corvina oil field; as well as, for injection equipment to be installed on the platform in the Albacora oil field by... Read more..

Western Refining Wholesale Turns to KSS Fuels for Pricing Intelligence Solution to Maintain Competitive Edge

Western Refining Wholesale, a division of Western Refining Inc., an independent refining and marketing company headquartered in El Paso, Texas, will use KSS Fuels’ RackPrice wholesale pricing solution to help it manage fuel prices at its wholesale locations. Western Refining is a crude oil refiner, wholesale fuel and lubricants distributor and retailer with operations in the Western United States and Virginia. The retail division is a long-time... Read more..

Sunoco to Close Polypropylene Plant in Bayport, Texas

Sunoco Inc. announced that it will permanently close its polypropylene manufacturing facility located in Bayport, Texas, no later than April 30, 2009. The facility can produce approximately 400 million pounds of polypropylene each year. “The decision to close the facility was made after an extensive review which demonstrated that the plant is no longer financially viable,” said Bruce D. Rubin, Vice President of Sunoco Chemicals. Sunoco has three... Read more..

Carbon Sciences Draws Interest From Oil Refineries at Istanbul CO2 Conference

Carbon Sciences Inc., the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into gasoline and other fuels, announced that representatives of oil refineries expressed a high level of interest in the company’s technology at the ACI Downstream CO2 & Energy Efficiency Forum held December 3-5 in Istanbul, Turkey. Derek McLeish, the company’s CEO and a featured speaker at the Conference, commented, “Our... Read more..

IFQC Ranks Top 100 Countries by Gasoline Benzene Standards; U.S. Ranks 67th

The International Fuel Quality Center (IFQC) has ranked the top 100 countries based on benzene content standards in gasoline; Colombia came in first with the earliest implementation of the lowest benzene limits. Following in second and third were Canada and Luxembourg, respectively. Benzene is found naturally in crude oil and thus passes into refined products, including transportation fuels. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies... Read more..

Alfa Laval Wins SEK 70 Million Power Order from the Middle East

Alfa Laval, a world leader in heat transfer, centrifugal separation and fluid handling – has received an order for crude oil treatment at Rabigh gas turbine power plant in Saudi Arabia. The order value is about SEK 70 million and delivery is scheduled for 2009. “During the last month we have won two large power orders from Asia which confirms that energy related customers continue to invest,” says Lars Renström, President and CEO of the Alfa... Read more..

SulphCo Extends Technology Transfer Agreement with Industrial Sonomechanics

SulphCo, Inc. announced that it has exercised its option to extend the term of the license agreement dated November 9, 2007 with Industrial Sonomechanics, LLC (“ISM”) covering ISM’s patented ultrasound horn and reactor technology. The term has been extended to the date on which the ISM patents expire. Under the terms of the License Agreement, ISM granted SulphCo exclusive worldwide rights to use its patented ultrasound horn and... Read more..

Terrabon Dedicates Energy Independence I, an Advanced Biofuels Research Facility in Bryan, Texas

Terrabon, L.L.C. held dedication ceremonies Friday, November 7, for its new Advanced Biofuels Research Facility in Bryan, Texas. The event marked completion of the facility, christened Energy Independence I, which will confirm the scaled-up, commercial feasibility of the Company’s MixAlco(TM) technology. MixAlco converts readily-available, low-cost, non-food biomass into chemicals that can be processed into renewable gasoline. Speaking at the... Read more..

Platts Survey: October OPEC Oil Output Dropped to 32.26 Mil. Barrels Per Day

The 13 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) pumped an average 32.26 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in October, according to a Platts survey of OPEC and oil industry officials just released. This is a 210,000 b/d decline from the September level of 32.47 million b/d. Excluding Iraq, production from the 12 members hitherto bound by output agreements fell by 220,000 b/d, to 29.96 million b/d from 30.18 million... Read more..

Argus Launches Price Assessments for Sakhalin Island Vityaz and Sokol Crudes

Argus, the international energy price reporting agency, has launched daily price assessments for Vityaz and Sokol crude oil from Russia’s Sakhalin island. Argus is the first price reporting service to offer daily assessments of Vityaz, whose output is expected to be around 90,000 b/d this year, rising to an expected plateau of 150,000 b/d from 2010. Vityaz is now sent by pipeline to the south of Sakhalin and can be exported without winter ice... Read more..