Motiva Enterprises LLC has let a contract to Roberts & Schaefer, a subsidiary of KBR, for construction of a petroleum coker material-handling system in the expansion of its 285,000-b/d refinery at Port Arthur, Tex.

A joint venture of Braskem of Brazil and Idesa Group of Mexico will use Technip technology for a 1.05-million tonne/year (tpy) ethane cracker at its Ethylene XXI complex under development in Mexico.

Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. is considering construction of an ethane cracker it describes as “world-scale” at one of its facilities on the US Gulf Coast.

Suncor Energy has completed a doubling of capacity at its St. Clair ethanol plant in the Sarnia-Lambton region of Ontario to 400 million l./year.

ExxonMobil Corp.’s Shiogama Terminal in Sendai, which reopened on Mar. 20, has received its first tanker shipment of much-needed fuel, including 2 million l. of gasoline, light oil, and kerosine.

The Japanese government, confirming earlier reports, will urge utilities to increase output at fossil fuel-fired electric power plants to boost power shortages after an earthquake and tsunami crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and other facilities.

A major explosion occurred at a Japanese petrochemical complex in the northeast city of Sendai just hours after the largest earthquake in the country’s history triggered a devastating tsunami.

Indian government officials on Feb. 15 dedicated a large naphtha cracker at state-owned Indian Oil Corp.’s 300,000-b/d Panipat refinery and petrochemical complex in Haryana north of New Delhi.

Valero Energy Corp. has successfully started up advanced reformate splitters at refineries in Texas and Tennessee.

Albemarle Corp., Baton Rouge, and Brazil’s Petroleo Brazileiro SA (Petrobras) have signed a memorandum of understanding to construct a world-scale hydroprocessing catalyst (HPC) production plant in Santa Cruz, Brazil.