Platts Report: China’s December Oil Demand at Record High 9.6 mil b/d

Platts – China’s apparent oil demand* in December rose 18% year over year to a record 40.73 million metric tons (mt), or an average 9.6 million barrels per day (b/d), with both crude throughput and net oil product imports rising, according to just-released Platts’ analysis of the latest official data. Oil demand in December was also up 7% from November’s 38.09 million mt, or 9.3 million b/d, the previous record high. For all of... Read more..

Flint Hills Resources to Acquire Two Iowa Ethanol Plants

Flint Hills Resources announced plans today to acquire ethanol plants in Iowa Falls and Fairbank, Iowa. Flint Hills Resources signed an agreement yesterday to purchase the plants from Hawkeye Renewables. The deal is expected to close early in the first quarter of 2011. The purchase price will not be disclosed. “We’re very pleased to add the Fairbank and Iowa Falls plants to our growing renewables business,” said Brad Razook, president of Flint... 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..

CVR Energy Reviews Multiple Crude Oil Supply Proposals; J. Aron & Company Amends Existing Agreement

CVR Energy, Inc. announced that it is in discussions with multiple parties to select a new supplier for a replacement of its crude oil supply agreement with J. Aron & Company. The company said that J. Aron and CVR Energy had agreed to extend to Dec. 1, 2008, the date by which either party may provide notice of cancellation of their current crude oil supply agreement. The agreement currently renews each year on Dec. 31 unless either party provides... Read more..

Synthesis Energy Systems Executes Joint Venture Agreement with YIMA Coal Group to Advance Coal Gasification Project in Henan Province, China

Synthesis Energy Systems, Inc., a global industrial gasification company, announced that it has entered into the primary joint venture agreement with YIMA Coal Croup (“YIMA”), a large Chinese integrated coal company, for the development of a coal gasification plant (the “Plant”) which will feed downstream process for the production of transportation fuels and chemicals intermediates in Henan Province, China. The joint venture... Read more..

Air Products to Supply Hydrogen to ExxonMobil in Louisiana

Air Products, the leading global hydrogen provider, today announced a long-term supply contract and plans to construct a new world scale hydrogen production facility, which will be connected to Air Products’ extensive Louisiana Hydrogen Pipeline Network, to serve ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana refinery and additional customers in the region. The facility is expected to be on-stream in March 2010. “We are very pleased to expand... Read more..

Suncor Energy completes planned maintenance activities at Sarnia refinery

Suncor Energy Products Inc. announced today that planned maintenance activities at the company’s Sarnia refinery are now complete. “All of the equipment involved has been returned to service,” said Marc Mageau, vice president of the Sarnia Refinery. “We’re proud to report the work was completed safely, on schedule and on budget.” The maintenance activities, which involved a partial shutdown of the refinery’s... Read more..

Moving Up in a Down Economy With Gulf Ethanol

With markets coursing the wildest roller coaster in modern history, investors worry about making the wrong choice and often freeze out of fear. With financial stocks wiped out and oil prices dropping, where does the smart money go? Over one-half of all millionaires are invested in alternative energy — over $148 Billion in 2007. What makes the smartest investors in America pick alternative fuels? They have the information needed to see where... Read more..

Emergency Stabilization Act Includes Incentives for Rentech and Other Alternative Energy Producers

Rentech, Inc. announced that the Company believes the enactment of the Emergency Stabilization Act is a positive step toward creating financial stability in the marketplace. The inclusion of several tax provisions in the Act will greatly benefit Rentech’s efforts in domestic alternative fuels production. Rentech has a commercial pipeline of both biomass and fossil based projects utilizing the Rentech Process, a patented and proprietary technology... Read more..

Synthesis Energy Systems Enters Into License Agreement with ExxonMobil for Up to 15 Methanol-to-Gasoline (MTG) Technology Licenses

Synthesis Energy Systems, Inc., a global industrial gasification company, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (“EMRE”) that provides SES the option to execute up to 15 Methanol-to-Gasoline (“MTG”) technology licenses at U-GAS® coal gasification plants globally. The commercially proven MTG technology incorporates improvements since the technology was originally... Read more..