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Authorities in Houston, Texas say a gang of armed robbers targeted a Valero gas station and convenience store on the city’s southeast side late Thursday night, but were stopped by an armed citizen who opened fire. Police responded to the store shortly before 9 p.m., where witnesses told them that a car with five individuals inside had pulled in to the station. Four of the men got out of the vehicle and entered the store, with the fifth man remaining behind the wheel. Once inside, the four pulled out guns and demanded customers and employees hand over their cash. That’s...

A mass shooting that left one dead and seven injured at a gas station in Oakland, California happened during the filming of a music video, reports say. The gunfire that erupted Monday night at a Valero location came hours after seven people were killed in a shooting in San Mateo County and about two days after a mass shooting in Monterey Park left 11 dead. Witnesses told police the gas station shooting on Seminary Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard happened during the filming of a music video, according to KTVU.

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police say a man is dead after he was shot while trying to rob a North Side convenience store late Thursday night. The shooting happened around 9:45 p.m. at a Valero gas station in the 9600 block of San Pedro Avenue, not far from Isom Road and Loop 410. According to police, the man walked into the store and began acting like a customer, reaching for his wallet before pulling out a gun on the store clerk. That’s when, police say, the clerk saw the gun and pulled out his own, shooting the man. SAPD...

“At this time, we believe this is a localized backflow issue from third party operations in the area of Valero’s asphalt terminal … We believe this issue is isolated to a lateral industrial line. Valero is offering its resources to assist the city in isolating the issue and to help confirm this has not impacted the city’s water supply.” The Corpus Christi legislative delegation released a statement saying two chemicals may have been released into the public water system, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The city previously identified Indulin AA-86, an emulsifying agent for asphalt, as the main hazard....

Lightning struck an electrical transformer at the Valero refinery in Texas City Thursday morning, causing a fire. Officials with Texas City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) told Houston's ABC affiliate Channel 13 that the lightning strike occurred just before 6:20 am CST this morning. Firefighters on the scene told local media that there is currently oil burning inside of a container at the facility. Derek Duckett, Texas City Emergency Management Coordinator, told the Houston Chronicle that firefighters can't douse the fire with water due to the potential danger from electrical shock. They are now containing the fire to the transformer...

As Saddam Hussein pressed the United Nations oil-for-food relief program for more money that he used to buy banned weapons, an unwitting ally may have been the American driver. Almost until the eve of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, American oil companies were among the largest purchasers of Iraqi crude oil. The role that the companies, including ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco, played in the oil-for-food program is now coming under greater scrutiny in the wake of a report by the chief arms inspector for the Central Intelligence Agency that disclosed how extensively Mr. Hussein was abusing profits from the...

Valero Energy Corp. has restarted production at a corn ethanol plant in Indiana that was shuttered more than two years ago by its previous owner. San Antonio-based Valero bought the plant in March from Illinois-based Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings Inc. for $34 million, boosting the number of its ethanol plants to 11. Valero has been preparing the plant for a restart since its purchase. Because the plant has been shuttered for almost two years, “it took a lot of preparation and maintenance,” Valero spokesman Bill Day said, but the company didn’t have to add any new equipment. During the time...

This matters because for refineries to stuff ballooning amounts of ethanol into a static gas pool, they must blend it at levels of more than 10%. Since the nation's auto makers have declared they will void the warranties of cars using gas with more than 10% ethanol, refineries face lawsuits. Most have instead turned to buying federal renewable "credits" to make up for the ethanol they don't blend. As demand for these credits skyrockets, so has the price—jumping from a few pennies a gallon last year to close to $1 a gallon today. Oil refiner Valero has said the credits...

Valero Energy Corp. plans to become a major player in the production of petrochemicals by building a $700 million methanol plant at its St. Charles refinery near New Orleans, a spokesman said Thursday. Valero will take advantage of low-cost natural gas from shale formations such as the Eagle Ford to produce methanol, used to make a range of products such as plastics, textiles, solvents and paint. Natural gas is used in the production of methanol. The time is ripe for expansion into petrochemicals because the market for them is growing faster than the fuels market, Valero spokesman Bill Day said....

BENICIA -- Rumors are swirling that Valero is putting its two California oil refineries on the market, including one in Benicia that is the city's largest employer. The speculation follows a Wall Street Journal report last week that said the San Antonio-based company has enlisted Citigroup Inc. to help find a buyer for the facilities. The article cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Valero operates a 78,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Wilmington outside Los Angeles and a 132,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Benicia. Together, the plants represent about 10 percent of the company's U.S. refining capacity. Valero, which has been critical of California's...

Two St. John [sheriff] deputies and two civilians were reportedly shot in LaPlace at about 5:00 a.m. UPDATE: WWL-TV reports that two officers are dead and two others were shot in the incident. The incident occurred near Bayou Steel on Highway 3217 in a Valero plant parking lot. That highway remains closed at this time. The parking lot is located in St. John Parish, while the Valero plant itself is located in St. Charles Parish. There is no word yet on the conditions of the officers or the other two people shot in the incident. A witness on the scene...

Valero Energy Corp. dropped another $3 million into the Proposition 23 campaign, according to campaign finance filings reported Friday to the Secretary of State. The Texas-based oil company has contributed more than $4 million to the initiative, which would suspend California's landmark greenhouse gas emissions reduction law until the state unemployment rate drops to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. Tesoro Corp., another oil company based in Texas, has also contributed more than $500,000 to the campaign.

Leading U.S. independent refiner Valero Energy Corp faulted the decision. San Antonio-based Valero has six Texas refineries, the most owned by a single company. The plants employ 2,700 people. "When the flex permit program was rolled out in 1994, EPA and environmental groups applauded it, and EPA approval seemed implicit," said Valero spokesman Bill Day in a statement. "Now, 16 years later, EPA is reversing course, and our facilities are caught in the middle, creating significant uncertainty at a time when our economy can least afford it."

A weakened U.S. refining industry could spell opportunity for foreign oil companies wanting to enter the world's biggest fuel market or buy plants on the cheap for other strategic reasons. Possible buyers include firms in nations with high demand for petroleum-based fuels but with insufficient refining capacity to make them, as well as companies in countries that need a home for surplus crude supplies, said Roger Ihne, a refining industry consultant with Deloitte in Houston. And if they're willing to pay current asking prices, they have much to choose from, with about 5 percent of the nation's refining capacity up...

Oil-refinery workers on the Delaware River yesterday received their second big blow in six weeks, when Valero Energy Corp. said it would close its operation in Delaware City, Del., casting 550 out of work. When workers heard the news, "it was like a time bomb went off," said Matt Edler, who has worked for 10 years at the refinery that rises out of the lowlands near the Delaware River in southern New Castle County. "My grandfather worked there, my father, and I worked there," said Edler, who yesterday afternoon joined other shocked refinery workers at Red Lion Inn in Bear,...

William Klesse, chief executive of oil refiner Valero Energy, is riled up. "I think cap-and-trade is ludicrous," he says. "The whole bill is a hidden tax." The so-called climate bill wending its way through the Senate aims to create a cap-and-trade regime covering emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If it passes in anything close to its current form, the bill would milk more carbon cash (payments to the government for the right to pollute) out of refiners than any other industry--somewhere between $30 billion and $110 billion a year. Valero, as America's biggest refiner (2.4 million barrels...

HOUSTON -- Some 24,000 refinery workers from the Gulf of Mexico to Montana are preparing to head to the picket lines. A labor agreement expires at midnight Saturday. On Thursday, union negotiators turned down the third and latest offer of a 2.5 percent wage increase for each of the next three years, in addition to changes in medical coverage. A strike would affect 60 producers, according to the United Steelworkers, which represents more than 30,000 oil workers nationwide. The nation's biggest refiner, Valero, said it will shut down some facilities if workers strike, as will European oil company BP. Shell...

Rising crude prices and weak gas margins are continuing to drag down Valero Energy's earnings from its record highs of a year ago. For the first quarter of 2008, Valero reported net income of $261 million, or 49 cents per share. That compares to first-quarter 2007 net income of $1.1 billion, or $1.82 per share. The first quarter 2008 figures include a pre-tax benefit of $101 million, or 12 cents per share, from business interruption insurance recovery related to the fire at the company's McKee refinery in the first quarter of 2007. Valero officials blame the decline in net income...

Energy Policy: When America's biggest oil refiner contemplates putting almost a third of its refineries on the market, Congress should sit up and take notice. The business climate it has created is hurting our economy.Valero Energy Corp. is an industry leader that refines more oil than any other in the U.S. The San Antonio, Texas, company had a good run in the stock market this decade, rising 1,400% before earnings topped last year. But it's no longer so easy for the company or any refiner. Valero will probably sell three of its 17 refineries this year and maybe two more...

7/31/2007 8:58:33 AM Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) reported second quarter net income of $2.2 billion or $3.89 per share, compared to $1.9 billion or $2.98 per share in the last year quarter. For the quarter, the company's income from Continuing Operations was $2.1 billion or $3.57 per share, versus $1.8 billion or $2.86 per share in the earlier year quarter. On average, 17 analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial expected the company to report earnings of $3.75 per share. Operating revenues for the quarter declined to $24.2 billion from $25.6 billion in the prior year quarter.