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.

Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Co. Ltd. (Yasref) has awarded a 2-year engineering services to SNC-Lavilin Fayez Engineering for the refinery and petrochemical plant under construction at Yanbu on the Red Sea. The company is a Saudi Arabia-registered subsidiary of SNC-Lavilin, Montreal.

Oil & Natural Gas Corp. of India has signed a memorandum of understanding to enter the urea fertilizer business in a move that would boost development of natural gas it has discovered over the past 2 decades in Tripura.

TexStar Midstream Services LP, San Antonio, will install two fractionation units in Corpus Christi, Tex., adjacent LyondellBasell’s Equistar Chemicals LP olefins plant.

Bipartisan legislation will be introduced to remove corn-based ethanol from the federal Renewable Fuels Standard in 2014, a group of US House members announced on Apr. 10.

Oneok Partners LP has completed three projects that are part of its previously announced growth program through 2015.

Shell Australia is looking for a buyer for its only refinery in southeastern Australia, the Geelong refinery, as part of Shell’s global strategy to concentrate investments on large-scale sites, such as the company’s Pulau Bukom refinery in Singapore.

Phillips 66 plans to develop a 100,000-b/d NGL fractionator at Old Ocean, Tex., near the company’s Sweeny refinery, some 40 miles southwest of Houston. If all approvals are received on schedule, construction will begin in first-half 2014 with start-up by second-half 2015, the company said.

China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec) said it has reached a cooperation framework agreement with Petroleum Oil & Gas Corp. of South Africa (PetroSA) “which enabled the companies to move forward the world-scale Mthombo crude oil refinery project in Port Elizabeth’s Coega Industrial Development Zone.”

Repsol has started up a 40,000-b/d delayed coker at the Petronor refinery at Muskiz near Bilbao, Spain, in a project that expands crude capacity to 240,000 b/d from 220,000 b/d.