Construction is 97% complete of the 400,000 b/d full-conversion Saudi Aramco Total Refinery & Petrochemicals Co. (Satorp) refinery at Jubail, Saudi Arabia (OGJ Online, Sept. 15, 2011).

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.

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.

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.

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.”