Representatives from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy should have been invited to testify at a hearing examining potential problems from EPA’s allowing gasoline with a 15% ethanol blend into the US market, the ranking minority member of a US House Science, Space, and Technology subcommittee suggested.

The union representing employees at Hess Corp.’s 70,000 b/d Port Reading, NJ, refinery has expanded its search for a new owner. Hess announced Jan. 28 that it plans to close the plant at the end of February and complete its withdrawal from the refining business after losing money there in two of the last 3 years.

The American Petroleum Institute and eight other trade associations asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court’s ruling that they lack standing to legally challenge the US Environmental Protection Agency’s introduction of gasoline with a 15% ethanol blend into the US market.

Lukoil has let a contract to Tecnicas Reunidas of Spain covering a vacuum gas oil deep conversion complex at its 11 million tonne/year (tpy) Volgograd refinery in Russia.

Global demand for petroleum refining, chemical synthesis, and polymerization catalysts will rise 5.8%/year to $19.5 billion in 2016, according to World Catalysts, a new study from the Freedonia Group Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.

Major cryogenic processing and NGL fractionation will come on stream in eastern Ohio late in the second quarter or early in the third quarter to handle Utica shale natural gas and liquids, with another plant planned for 2014.

Two Republicans on the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee introduced legislation on Feb. 15 to keep the US Environmental Protection Agency from bringing gasoline with a 15% ethanol blend (E15) onto the market.

The US Chemical Safety Board said Chevron Corp. was aware of a problem with a corroded pipe before an Aug. 6, 2012, fire at Chevron’s 240,000 b/d Richmond refinery in Martinez, Calif.

Saudi Aramco Lubricating Oil Refining Co. (Luberef) has contracted with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. to provide project management consulting for an expansion at Luberef’s lube oil refinery in Yanbu.

CHS Inc. subsidiary Front Range Pipeline LLC will build a 7-mile connection in central Montana to link its Front Range crude oil pipeline with the Kinder Morgan Express Pipeline.