-Chevron representatives told Bloomberg an upgrade at its Richmond, Calif., refinery could be done by the middle of 2016 if the company gets city approval within two or three months. Chevron is planning to replace a hydrogen plant and increase capacity at an FCCU’s hydrotreater and sulfur recovery system. Chevron also shot down speculation that the upgrade would bring heavy Canadian oil sands crude and Bakken oil into Richmond. Neither is optimal for the Richmond refinery, which relies on oil from Saudi Arabia and Alaska.
-Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. reported a coker outage at the Syncrude oil sands project. The unplanned maintenance will overlap a turnaround at a separate coker planned for the second quarter.
-The American Chemistry Council rolled out a new set of principles for improving federal chemical hazard and risk assessment programs. The principles were established in response to a recent EPA formaldehyde assessment that was found to by the National Academy of Sciences to be flawed.
-Oil and natural gas companies increased spending on exploration and development by 5% and cut spending on property acquisition by 17% last year, the EIA reported today. Total spending was essentially flat last year after averaging 11% annual growth from 2000 to 2012. The EIA noted that flat oil prices and rising costs have resulted in smaller cash flows for the 42 U.S. and international firms included in the agency’s analysis.
