A flare on the Elgin platform in the UK North Sea extinguished itself Mar. 31, and Total SA outlined plans to stop the gas leak by boarding the platform to control the well while also drilling a relief well and a backup relief well.

The Silly Season has arrived earlier than usual in Washington—undoubtedly because gasoline prices have soared, and many members of Congress feel their constituents' pain more than usual because it's an election year.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (KMEP) and Martin Midstream Partners LP (MMP) will develop a multicommodity rail terminal in Pecos, Tex., through a new joint venture, Pecos Valley Producer Services LLC.

Trafigura Beheer BV was in hot water last week after buying a cargo of Nile Blend crude aboard the MT Ratna Shradha, which was poised to offload at Japan's Kiire terminal, owned by JX Nippon Oil & Energy.

Improvements to the pipelines crossing the Arabian Peninsula would allow more of the oil produced in the Persian Gulf to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, according to a paper from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

The government of South Sudan, faced with alleged obstructions by Sudan, announced plans to build a refinery and pipeline aimed at transporting recently discovered crude oil to an export terminal in Kenya.

Iran's oil diplomacy was in full swing last week, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting several Latin American countries, led by his talks with Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP, Oiltanking Partners LP, and GT Logistics LLC (GTL) all announced new liquids terminal projects on the Texas Gulf Coast, with GTL explicitly citing possible crude oil exports in describing its facility.

Combining the classical Austin-Palfrey formula with field data creates a new formula capable of predicting the amount of mixed-product volume arriving at each terminal of a long, multiproduct pipeline crossing varied terrain.

A new rule prioritizing product delivery to the eligible terminal closest to the one being currently served reduces total accumulated idle volume by about 40% and decreases the number of cut operations.