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Americas

Marathon plans new name, upgrade for BP Texas City refinery

HP Editorial Staff: HP News Services

Marathon Petroleum, which officially completes its acquisition of the 415,000 bpd complex on Friday, has begun referring to the Gulf Coast site as the Galveston Bay refinery.

Technip wins engineering for Westlake ethylene expansion in Kentucky

The ethylene production capacity will be increased by 40%, the companies said Tuesday, rising from 450 million lb/year to 630 million lb/year. It will use ethane feedstock instead of propane, as per the original design. Technip's operating center in Claremont, California, will execute the work.

BP names new head of safety, operational risk

Bob Fryar, who is executive vice president for production in BP's upstream business, will take up his new position from Feb. 15. The role includes oversight for security. He will take over from Mark Bly, who has headed BP's safety functions since March 2008 and who plans to retire from BP in the summer.

Idemitsu partners with AltaGas to export LNG, LPG from Canada to Japan

Under the 50:50 plan by oil refiner Idemitsu and gas pipeline operator AltaGas, the two may build an LNG export terminal near Kitimat in British Columbia, possibly starting LNG exports mainly to Japan as early as 2017. The venture also plans to develop a liquefied petroleum gas export business.

Repsol likely to sell global LNG assets to Shell

Repsol was initially looking to raise some €3 billion via the sale, but the final figure could be much lower, in the ballpark of €2 billion. The LNG assets are located in Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada and Spain.

Valero exploring use of rail to move Canadian crude oil to US Gulf refineries

Valero already has expanded greatly how much oil from Texas and North Dakota its Gulf Coast refineries use. The San Antonio, Texas, company, the world's largest independent refiner, now is looking into using rail cars to bring Western Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast, home to about two-thirds of its refining capacity.

Hess to sell terminals, close New Jersey refinery

Hess no longer considers the terminal network -- which includes 19 terminals along the East Coast and which had been a main outlet for production for its Hovensa joint venture with PdVSA -- as central to its operations. Hess's St. Lucia terminal in the Caribbean also will be in the group offered for sale.

Shell, Kinder Morgan announce plans to export LNG from Georgia terminal

The move, which comes in the wake of a recent report commissioned by the US Department of Energy that came out in favor of LNG exports, is the latest among major energy companies seeking to capitalize on North America's the newly found abundance of natural gas from shale.

US chemical group retracts stated support for natural gas exports

HP Editorial Staff: HP News

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has retracted a week-old statement on its website in support of US natural gas exports, officials with the trade group confirmed.

KBR named engineering partner by CRI for catalytic thermochemical technology

Under the terms of the contract, KBR will provide basic engineering services for broad, full scale commercial deployment of IH2 units. IH2 technology is a cost-effective catalytic thermo-chemical process to produce liquid transportation fuels from renewable resources.