Reuters The owners of Limetree Bay, a Caribbean refinery that was once the largest in the Western Hemisphere, filed for bankruptcy on Monday after lenders balked at putting new cash into a project dogged by cost overruns and regulatory troubles. The St. Croix refinery overhaul was the most expensive effort in nearly a decade to expand refining capacity in the
Reuters U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared divided over a bid by small oil refineries for exemptions from a federal law requiring increasing levels of biofuels to be blended into their products. The justices heard arguments in an appeal by three refineries in Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma of a lower court ruling that faulted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Reuters NEW YORK – The Trump administration has argued against a petition from oil refiners asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court decision that undermined the legitimacy of the Environmental Protection Agency’s biofuel waiver program. Department of Justice officials said the court should not review the case as it does not conflict with any other Supreme Court
Fox Business The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to adopt new rules that would rescind regulations for methane-gas emissions, including ending requirements that oil-and-gas producers have systems and procedures to detect methane leaks in their systems, senior administration officials said. The rule changes will apply to wells drilled since 2016 and going forward, and remove the largest pipelines, storage sites and
Reuters WASHINGTON/NEW YORK – A rapid-fire succession of setbacks for big energy pipelines in the United States this week has revealed an uncomfortable truth for the oil and gas industry: environmental activists and landowners opposed to projects have become good at blocking them in court. The latest setbacks have increased the difficulty for developers of billions of dollars worth of
CNBC A vast renewable energy scheme has been recommended for environmental approval by Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). The Asian Renewable Energy Hub is a planned development in the East Pilbara area of Western Australia. Set to cover 6,500 square kilometers of land, it’s envisaged that the project will produce as much as 15 gigawatts (GW) of wind and
Reuters The Trump administration has decided not to appeal a court ruling that would sharply reduce its use of waivers exempting refineries from the nation’s biofuels regulation, cheering the corn lobby but drawing anger from oil refiners. The administration had until the end of March 24 to file a challenge, but by early March 25, no such filing had been
Reuters HOUSTON – Three workers were injured in an early morning explosion on Wednesday that sparked a blaze at a Texas petrochemical plant, the latest in a series of chemical plant accidents in the region. An initial explosion at a TPC Group plant in Port Neches, Texas, was followed by secondary blasts, shattering windows and blowing locked doors off their
From Reuters The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday unveiled a proposal that would curb state powers to block pipelines and other energy projects, as part of the Trump administration’s effort to boost domestic oil, gas and coal development. The move, swiftly criticized by an organization representing progressive states, comes four months after President Donald Trump ordered the EPA here
From Reuters Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth on Wednesday asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General to investigate why the agency vastly expanded its use of waivers to exempt small refineries from the nation’s biofuel law. The request, made in a letter from Duckworth’s office to Acting Inspector Charles Sheehan, follows a May 16 Reuters report that the
From Houston Chronicle WASHINGTON – House Republicans are pushing to eliminate the federal mandate that ethanol be blended into the nation’s fuel supply, to be replaced by a requirement cars built from 2023 on run only on gasoline with a minimum octane level of 95. In legislation under debate at a hearing Tuesday, the EPA would stop requiring ethanol blending in
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) set yearly RFS volume requirements for each renewable fuel category. EPA updates volume requirements each year based on fuel availability. The RFS is a federal program that requires transportation fuel that is sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels. It’s known as the renewable fuel
