Activists Blockade Shell Refinery in Port of Rotterdam
Dozens of Greenpeace activists in Rotterdam port used a ship, buoys and a small flotilla of kayaks on Monday to block traffic around Shell’s Pernis refinery, Europe’s largest, as part of a campaign seeking a ban on fossil fuel advertising.Police ended the blockade after several hours and the port’s authority said economic disruption to the wider harbor was minimal.The action comes as Greenpeace and more than 20 other environmental groups began seeking a million signatures for a European Union-wide ban on adverts and sponsorships by oil and gas companies…
Lightning Sparks Fire at Hengyuan's Malaysian Refinery
Hengyuan Refining Company Bhd said on Friday that a tank storing crude oil had caught fire at its refinery on the Malaysian west coast.Preliminary investigations show the fire at the Port Dickson refinery was due to a lightning strike, the company said in a statement."The damages sustained from the fire incident are restricted to one crude tank area," the company said.The fire affected a 10,000-litre capacity oil tank, Malaysian state news agency Bernama reported, citing fire and rescue department officials. Firefighting operations were ongoing, it said.Hengyuan is a subsidiary of China's Shandong Hengyuan Petrochemical Co.
Singapore LNG and YTL PowerSeraya Appoint New CEOs
Singapore-based energy company YTL PowerSeraya and LNG terminal operator Singapore LNG Corp (SLNG) announced that they have appointed new chief executive officers (CEOs).YTL PowerSeraya said that han Swee Huat has decided to step down as CEO of the Group with effect from 15 January 2019. Chan plans to retire but will continue to serve as an advisor to parent company YTL Power International.He will be succeeded by industry veteran John Ng, who was most recently the CEO of Singapore LNG Corporation (SLNG). Not new to YTL PowerSeraya…
Traders Shift Oil Products out of Storage
Short-term appetite for oil products has jumped; that is pushing traders to take oil products out of storage. Some energy traders in Southeast Asia are cutting their use of storage tanks as short-term demand for oil products soars, hitting companies that rent out storage at a time when many of them have just expanded their capacity. Three traders told Reuters they have cut the amount of oil they hold in tanks or decided not to renew storage contracts in the past year. A shift away from storage could potentially be bad news for tank operators running in the region like the Netherlands' Vopak and Oiltanking…
Workers at Sri Lanka's State-run Oil Firm Call off Strike
Workers at Sri Lanka's state-run oil firm CPC called off a strike on Monday less than 24 hours it started after the government agreed to consult them before signing an oil tank deal with India. CPC Managing Director Nadun Fernando said the trade unions agreed to call off the strike after six and a half hours of talks that also involved Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. A trade union official said they called off the strike after Wickremesinghe agreed in writing to consult them about the deal, which would put 99 oil tanks in the hands of Lanka IOC , a subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation.
Sinopec to Open Zhanjiang Oil Tanks; SPR Site Delayed
Commercial crude storage of 8.5 mln bbls due start by June; Sinopec also building a rock cavern strategic reserve base nearby. Sinopec Corp is expected to start operating by June a new commercial crude oil tank farm in the southern Chinese city of Zhanjiang, where a large strategic reserve site is also under construction, three industry sources said this week. The new commercial tanks will store 8.5 million barrels, equivalent to over four supertankers. The tank farm consists of twelve tanks of 100,000 cubic metres each and three tanks of 50…
Company to Pay $9.5 Mln for Actions Leading to US Gulf Explosion
Wood Group PSN Inc., a Nevada corporation headquartered in Houston, was ordered to pay $9.5 million in two separate cases involving its conduct in the Gulf of Mexico. Specifically, Wood Group PSN was ordered to pay $7 million for falsely reporting over several years that personnel had performed safety inspections on offshore facilities in the Gulf of Mexico in the Western District of Louisiana, and $1.8 million for negligently discharging oil into the Gulf of Mexico in violation of the Clean Water Act after an explosion on an offshore facility in the Eastern District of Louisiana…
Shortage of Caribbean Storage Forces Some Crude Sales at Loss
A saturated oil storage network in the Caribbean is forcing some South American and African producers to keep selling crude at prices that do not cover production costs, brokers and sources told Reuters. Low price environments typically motivate producing and trading companies to store more crude while waiting for a better time to sell, but a lack of available storage tanks in the Caribbean is leaving them with few options. "It's a death spiral, a race to the bottom," an oil tank broker said on condition of anonymity…
Islamic State Targets Es Sider Port Again
Islamic State militants resumed shelling near the Libyan oil port of Es Sider on Tuesday and an oil storage tank in the port was hit causing a fire, a petroleum guards spokesman and the National Oil Corporation said. The guards spokesman said the militants were 30-40 km (19-25 miles) from the port, which they also targeted on Monday in an attack that left seven guards dead and 25 wounded. In the nearby oil port of Ras Lanuf, a fire at an oil tank that was hit on Monday had been mostly contained but was still burning, the spokesman said. Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli
Hundreds of Rail Tank Cars Now Idle
Amid the rolling mountains surrounding this quiet town in southwest New York state, tucked away on miles-long stretches of underused rail tracks, hundreds of idle oil tank cars attest to the extent of fallout from oil's rout. The oil tank cars - a year ago sought-after to haul crude from North Dakota to New Jersey - now stand idle as a result of two converging trends: the reversal in U.S. shale oil production and the completion of new pipelines. They show how the pain from the slump in the oil-by-rail industry has spread far and wide.
Train Lobby Pushes to Weaken Safety Rule
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is set to be a chief beneficiary of a bid by Senate Republicans to weaken new regulations to improve train safety in the $2.8 billion crude-by-rail industry, a key cog in the development of the vast North American shale oil fields. A series of oil train accidents, including the July 2013 explosion of a train carrying crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, led U.S. and Canadian regulators to announce sweeping safety rules in May. Among other things, U.S. oil trains are required to install new electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes.
North Dakota's Train Safety Rules Inadequate
New regulations to cap vapor pressure of North Dakota crude fail to account for how it behaves in transit, according to industry experts, raising doubts about whether the state's much-anticipated rules will make oil train shipments safer. High vapor pressure has been identified as a possible factor in the fireball explosions witnessed after oil train derailments in Illinois and West Virginia in recent weeks. The new rules, which take effect on April 1, aim to contain dangers by spot-checking the vapor pressure of crude before loading and capping it at 13.7 pounds per square inch (psi) - about normal atmospheric conditions.
First Supertanker Docks at Vopak-Dialog Terminal
A supertanker carrying about 1 million barrels of Middle East crude docked on Monday at a terminal jointly run by Vopak and Dialog Group in Malaysia, the companies said. The arrival of tanker MT Mesdar marked the start of operations at southeast Asia's first commercial crude oil tank farm. The tanker had been chartered by CSSA, the shipping arm of French oil major Total, and it loaded the crude cargo at Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates in February, Reuters shipping data showed. Located in Pengerang, in the southern state of Johor…
Canada Unable to Agree with U.S. on Rail Car Brakes
Canada was unable to reach agreement with the United States on whether to require advanced braking systems in new oil tank cars, so the requirement was dropped from a draft of new Canadian tank-car standards, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said. The proposed standards, published on Wednesday, did not include a requirement for electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, but the draft said braking requirements would be included in new operating rules. The United States is expected to release its own standards, but the two countries have been working to harmonize requirements so they are likely to be very similar.
Derailed CSX Train Hauled Newer-Model Tank Cars
A CSX Corp oil train that derailed and erupted in flames in West Virginia on Monday was hauling newer model tank cars, not the older versions widely criticized for being prone to puncture, the firm said. All of the oil tank cars on the 109-car train were CPC 1232 models, CSX said late Monday. The train, which was carrying North Dakota crude to an oil depot in Yorktown, Virginia, derailed in a small town 33 miles (54 km) southeast of Charleston. The CPC 1232 is the newer, supposedly tougher version of the DOT-111 cars that were manufactured up until 2011.
Es Sider Port Oil Tanks On Fire
A fire at an oil storage tank at Libya's Es Sider oil port has spread to two more tanks, officials said on Friday. The first oil tank was hit during clashes between armed factions allied to Libya's competing governments over control of the country's biggest oil port, located in the east. Es Sider and the nearby Ras Lanuf port have been closed since the fighting broke out two weeks ago. Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli
Husky's Hardisty Terminal Partly Shut After Fire
Some parts of Husky Energy Inc's 2.5 million-barrel crude oil tank farm in Hardisty, Alberta, are still not operating after a fire in an empty storage tank on Wednesday, a Husky spokeswoman said on Friday. Firefighters extinguished the blaze around 6 pm local time (0000 GMT) on Wednesday and the facility was temporarily shut as a precaution. Some operations at the tank farm, which handles approximately 25 percent of crude oil exports from Western Canada, had returned to normal by Friday afternoon. "Normal operations have been established in many areas with the remainder coming on line as per resumption plans…
Fire at Milazzo Refinery Impacts Docks
Inchcape Shipping Services is advising of extensive disruption after a fire broke out Friday afternoon (27 September) at Italy’s energy giant Eni and Kuwait Petroleum’s jointly owned Milazzo oil refinery, near the northeast coast of Sicily. The incident is thought to have been caused by flames that broke out on the roof of a 5,000 litre tank containing gasoline. The port of Milazzo’s terminal shore tanks were affected by the incident and all berthing/unberthing operations remain suspended. No injuries have been reported and firefighters have managed to bring the fire under control.
Oil Train Regulation Passes in California
California lawmakers on Friday passed legislation requiring railroad companies to tell emergency officials when crude oil trains will chug through the state. The bill would require railroads to notify the state's Office of Emergency Services when trains carrying crude oil from Canada and North Dakota are headed to refineries in the most populous U.S. state. It passed its final vote in the Assembly 61-1, with strong bipartisan support within the state legislature in Sacramento. The bill now goes to Democratic Governor Jerry Brown for his signature.
US DOT Plans Staggered Phase-out for Old Oil Tank Cars
The U.S. Department of Transportation proposes phasing out older DOT-111 railcars for shipping highly flammable crude oils, known as packing group 1, within 2 years, an aide to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said on Wednesday. Older DOT-111 cars would be phased out for the less flammable crudes in packing groups two and three over three and five years respectively, the aide said. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner, writing by Edward McAllister)
