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The USA has called for Ukraine not to attack Russian refineries despite Russia's widespread offensive against several energy facilities in Ukraine. The Department of Defense has warned that such an attack could bring another spike in fuel prices worldwide. Michaelo Podoliak, advisor to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed that such facilities were legitimate military targets. In a recent interview, he also claimed that such an attack was not only legitimate but desirable on a worldwide level in order to weaken Russia's hold on the energy lobby. “Ukraine must destroy Russia's refineries. They have no impact on worldwide pricing, and are...

The BP-Husky Toledo refinery in Oregon, Ohio, has been “safely shut down” after a fire reportedly broke out for no apparent reason. A BP spokesperson told Reuters that the company suspects “leaking fumes from a crude unit may have caused the ignition in another unit at the facility.” This same person added that workers at the facility had just “finished a maintenance turnaround” a few weeks prior after having been offline for some time. (Related: Remember back in the summer when several Texas oil refineries shut down under similarly suspicious circumstances?) According to reports, the BP-Husky Toledo refinery processes up...

In 2007, the U.S. Congress mandated the blending of biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into gasoline. One of the top goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But today, the nation´s ethanol plants produce more than double the climate-damaging pollution, per gallon of fuel production capacity, than the nation´s oil refineries, according to a Reuters analysis of federal data. The average ethanol plant chuffed out 1,187 metric tons of carbon emissions per million gallons of fuel capacity in 2020, the latest year data is available. The average oil refinery, by contrast, produced 533 metric tons of carbon. The ethanol plants´ high emissions...

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Steve Rattner, who served as counselor to the Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, stated that there is a bit of “schizophrenia” in our energy policy where “We’ve been discouraging oil companies from maintaining refineries or opening new ones. Because we theoretically are going to transition away from gasoline.” But the problem is, there was a “misjudgment as to how long of a transition it was going to be and what we needed to do to make the transition work.” Rattner stated that “refining capacity has gone down” due to refineries shutting down...

Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos will take control of the Deer Park refinery in Houston, Texas on Jan. 20, three sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) in May agreed to sell its majority stake in the Deer Park refinery, which can process up to 340,000 barrels per day (bpd), to Pemex (PEMX.UL), its long-time partner in the plant, for about $596 million.

The man who fatally shot two people at a White Settlement Church on Sunday before being killed by church security has been identified as a 43-year-old Keith Thomas Kinnunen, a River Oaks man with a criminal record, according to two law enforcement sources. Kinnunen is believed to have been wearing a disguise, including a fake beard, when he stood up, pulled a shotgun from his clothing and opened fire inside the church, killing 64-year-old Anton Wallace, a church deacon from Fort Worth, and 67-year-old Richard White, of River Oaks.

The first nationwide oil refinery strike in more than 30 years was expected to grow by four more plants over the weekend, including the largest refinery in the U.S., the Motiva Enterprises refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. The United Steelworkers union said Saturday workers at the Motiva Enterprises refinery started their strike at midnight Friday. Employees at two other refineries and a chemical plant in Louisiana planned to strike at the end of Saturday. The union said in a statement that it expanded the strike that started Feb. 1 at refineries largely in Texas and California because the industry has...

Arrogant oil refiners concerned more about profits than the safety and workplace concerns of thousands of USW-represented oil workers forced the union to call an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike.The industry, represented by Royal Dutch Shell, gave the USW no other option when it refused to bargain in good faith over a national contract even though the union was prepared to continue talking beyond the midnight deadline.“Shell refused to provide us with a counter-offer and left the bargaining table,” International President Leo W. Gerard said. “We had no choice but to give notice of a work stoppage.”The negotiations for a...

U.S. and coalition warplanes pounded ISIS positions in eastern Syria on Wednesday, targeting what a Pentagon official described as mobile oil refineries being used by the so-called Islamic State terror group.

The Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to beef up air quality regulations for oil refineries, an action officials said would cut toxic emissions by 5,600 tons per year. The agency maintained the updated standards would protect public health with negligible impacts on the cost of petroleum — a contention immediately disputed by the oil and gas industry. Under the proposed changes, companies would for the first time be required to monitor concentrations of benzene, a chemical compound linked to an array of health problems, surrounding the refineries. Results of the monitoring would be made available to the public. The new...

ATLANTA (AP) — Armed with a handheld video camera, a Georgia university student drove with a friend in April 2005 to Washington, D.C., and captured scenes of the Capitol, the Pentagon and other locations. Investigators say Syed Haris Ahmed, now 24, wasn't a tourist but a wannabe terrorist who wanted to send the videos of potential terror targets to an overseas contact. He was attending the Georgia Institute of Technology at the time. The charges, along with an allegation that Ahmed went to Pakistan and tried to join a terrorism group a few months later, are central to a federal...

New York and 11 other states are suing federal environmental regulators over greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries, the New York attorney general's office said on Monday. The suit, led by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, charges that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the federal Clean Air Act by refusing to issue standards, known as new source performance standards, for controlling global warming pollution emissions from oil refineries. Note: Other states in the suit are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. New York City and Washington D.C. also joined in...

Fox news alert that the House Democrats are calling to have all US refineries nationalized!!

Greens Thwart Gasoline Production By Steven Milloy Four-plus-dollar gasoline is forcing Americans to realize that we need increased domestic oil production to meet our ever-growing demand for affordable fuel. But even if the greens lose the political battle over drilling offshore and in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they nevertheless are way ahead of the game as they implement a back-up plan to make sure that not a drop of that oil ever eases our gasoline crunch. The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, successfully pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block ConocoPhillips’...

Wednesday, June 4, 2008 Iran commits to 7 refineries in bid to end exports NICOSIA — Iran plans to construct seven oil refineries in an effort to achieve energy self-sufficiency. A senior Iranian official said the refineries would increase capacity by more than 1.5 million barrels per day and end gasoline exports. The official said all seven refineries would begin operations by 2012, Middle East Newsline reported. "The construction of seven refineries has started with the investment of 15 billion euro," National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co. director Aminollah Eskandari said. "About 1.56 million barrels will be added...

ATLANTA - Two U.S. citizens accused of plotting to attack civilian and government targets shot "casing videos" of Washington landmarks that were found on a terrorism suspect's computer in Britain and met with suspects in a Canadian terrorism case, an FBI agent testified Monday. Agent Mark Richards testified that the videos of the U.S. Capitol and other Washington landmarks taken by Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Sadequee were found on a computer belonging to Younis Tsouli, a Moroccan-born man who pleaded guilty in Britain in July to inciting others to commit acts of terrorism. Richards also said Ahmed and Sadequee, during...

TEHRAN, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Iran says it plans to build eight new oil refineries in a joint venture with private investors. "The refineries are intended to supply domestic market needs but the surplus will be exported to neighboring countries," Amin-allah Eskandari, an Iranian Oil Ministry official, told Iran's PressTV in Tehran.

I am writing this letter in answer to article concerning high gas prices, in the May 3 edition of the Calvert Independent. In addressing the high gasoline prices, I am not surprised to see the slant, or “spin,” that the greedy oil companies are the blame for the high prices. It never fails to amaze me when liberal minds continually spout the talking points spewed forth daily by the media. Why are gasoline prices high? Who is to blame? First, we have the onerous fuel blend regulations of the Carol Browner EPA of 1997, creating nearly 30 fuel blends nationwide....

Two Atlanta-area men met with Islamic extremists in Toronto, where they discussed "strategic locations in the United States suitable for a terrorist strike," according to an FBI affidavit made public Friday. Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee -- U.S. citizens from the Atlanta area -- met with at least three other targets of FBI terrorism investigations during a trip to Toronto last month, according to the affidavit. The affidavit said the men discussed attacks against oil refineries and military bases. They also planned to travel to Pakistan for military training at a terrorist camp, which authorities said the 21-year-old...

SINGAPORE (AP) -- Crude oil futures fell Tuesday as unseasonably mild weather along the U.S. East Coast spurred hopes that this year's Northern Hemisphere winter could be warmer than expected, weakening demand for heating fuel. Light, sweet crude for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange lost 34 cents to US$57.02 a barrel in Asian electronic trading. The contract fell US$1.36 to settle at US$57.35 a barrel Monday. In London, January Brent fell 53 cents to US$54.35 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. In recent weeks, the market has been fixated on weather patterns in the northeastern U.S.,...