Free Republic

Warren Buffett’s company has agreed to trade roughly $1.4 billion of its stock in Phillips 66 for one of the refiner's chemical businesses. Houston-based Phillips 66 said Monday that Berkshire Hathaway will give up about 19 million of its 27.2 million Phillips 66 shares to acquire a business that makes additives that help crude oil flow through pipelines. …

Phillips 66 has begun shipping crude by rail from North Dakota to a refinery in New Jersey in an effort estimated at more than $1 billion. The company said this week it had signed a five-year deal with Global Partners to move oil produced in the Bakken shale play to its Bayway refinery. The Bayway refinery, the largest on the east coast, is already receiving crude through the deal, which will move 91 million barrels of oil over the contract term, or about 50,000 barrels a day, Phillips 66 spokesman Dennis Nuss said. The refinery is expected to receive crude...

Capital movements due to fears over a possible US-Iran war, financial speculation or market meltdown are driving crude prices upward. Milan (AsiaNews) – Capital movements on commodity exchanges, not low supply are pushing oil prices upward. Brent crude has reached US$ 74 a barrel because of lowered refinery use and a backup in crude inventories that has left many a super tanker waiting to unload. Oil storage has become a problem since facilities are full in the Persian Gulf, Europe, the Americas and even Asia. Even Israel, which built huge embargo-busting oil depots to allow the country to survive every...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Stop endangering employeesBy John R. Lott Jr. and April L. DabneyPublished August 23, 2005 Banning guns from the workplace seems like the obvious way to prevent workplace violence. At least that is the policy at ConocoPhillips and many other companies. The nation's largest oil refiner bans employees from storing locked guns in their cars while parked in company parking lots. The issue erupted this month when the NRA announced a boycott of Conoco and Phillips 66 gasoline stations and editorial pages across the country attacked the NRA's action as outrageous.     Two-and-a-half years ago, 12 employees at...