Pipe samples from Chevron USA Inc.’s El Segundo, Calif., refinery show similar sulfidation corrosion to samples from the company’s Richmond, Calif., plant where a crude oil unit caught fire on Aug. 6, 2012, a report showed.

Empire Oil and Gas NL, Claremont, WA, is nearing completion on its Red Gully natural gas and condensate separation plant in Western Australia.

Qatar Petroleum has signed a joint venture agreement covering the expansion of its Laffan Refinery condensate spliter at Ras Laffan (OGJ Online, Aug. 19, 2011).

Williams Partners LP, Tulsa, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC have joined to form Three Rivers Midstream, a company to provide gas gathering and gas processing for production in northwest Pennsylvania. The venture will invest in both wet-gas handling infrastructure and dry-gas infrastructure serving Marcellus and Utica shale wells.

A London think tank study warned against expansion of biofuel use in the UK as the requirement rose to 5% by volume in transportation fuel on Apr. 15 and faced European pressure to increase further.

A failure to apply an inherently safer design, identify and evaluate damage mechanism hazards, and use effective safeguards led to an Aug. 6, 2012, pipe rupture and vapor release that ignited and shut down the No. 4 crude oil unit at Chevron USA Inc.’s Richmond, Calif., refinery, the US Chemical Safety Board said in a draft report.

A Rosneft subsidiary has agreed to buy a large minority stake in Saras SPA, which operates a 300,000 b/d, high-conversion refinery in Sarroch, on the southwestern coast of Sardinia.

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of the northwest province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to build a 40,000-b/d refinery on about 400 acres in Kohat district of K-P, the state-owned company reported.

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) asked the US Supreme Court to overturn the District of Columbia Circuit Appeals Court’s August 2012 decision to dismiss it and other oil industry associations’ legal challenges of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s partial approval of gasoline with a 15% ethanol blend.

HollyFrontier Corp. and Holly Energy Partners LP (HEP) are building a rail terminal near HollyFrontier's 100,000-b/d Navajo refining complex in Artesia and Lovington, NM.

Western Refining Inc. has started its Mason Station crude oil terminal in Reeves County, Tex., the first phase of its Delaware Basin crude oil gathering system.