USA and Canada: news update

British Colombia

At the end of last week, anti fracking protesters chained themselves to the entrance gate of Chevron’s Burnaby refinery. They were also protesting against the ‘exploitative resource extraction’ that they believe is currently being undertaken in Canada. The protesters’ actions caused a lock down at the refinery.

California

Officials in Contra Costa County want to recirculate the environmental impact report for a propane and butane recovery project. The project is for the Phillips 66 Rodeo refinery and is subject to a hearing before the Board of Supervisors this week. The project will involve the installation of new equipment to recover and sell propane and butane instead of burning it as fuel at the refinery of flaring off. The project would reduce emissions of several pollutants, including sulfur dioxide.

ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil Corporation’s board of directors has elected Jack P. Williams and Darren W. Woods to the positions of senior vice president and members of the management committee of the corporation. Williams and Woods, together with Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and CEO, and senor vice presidents Mark W Albers, Michael J Dolan and Andrew P Swiger, will constitute the corporation’s management committee. The elections were made at a meeting of the board of directors on 28^{th/sup> May and are effective from June 1st.}

Graham Corporation

The Graham Corporation has been awarded four order for projects valued at US$ 10 million. The orders are for upgrades to Graham ejector system components at three oil refineries and an ethylene capacity expansion project in North America. Shipments are due to begin during the next 9 – 15 months.

Michigan

TruStar Energy has announced the successful startup of Advanced Disposal’s newest CNG fuelling station in Detroit. The station is designed to time fill all 56 trucks simultaneously at night at Advanced Disposal’s Detroit location, which represents a significant manpower saving over fuelling traditional diesel trucks. With the time fill station design, drivers merely park their vehicles back in the yard upon completely their routes, plug in the fuelling nozzle, and walk away. When they return in the morning, their trucks are fuelled and ready to hit the streets once more.

Texas

Cheniere Energy, Inc. has announced that its subsidiary, Corpus Christi Liquefaction LLC, has entered into an LNG sale and purchase agreement with Iberdrola, S.A. under which Iberdrola has agreed to purchase approximately 0.4 million tpy of LNG upon the commencement of operations of Train 1 of the LNG export facility being developed near Corpus Christi, Texas, and increasing to approximately 0.8 million tpy of LNG upon the commencement of operations of Train 2. The Corpus Christi project is being designed and permitted for up to three trains, with aggregate design production capacity of 13.5 million tpy of LNG.

Edited from various sources by Claira Lloyd

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/02062014/usa_canada_downstream_update_june/