-Refining executives on Tuesday sent a letter to President Obama urging him to hold fast on the reduced Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) his administration proposed last November. The EPA has since said it could implement a higher RFS for 2014, which refiners say would increase gasoline prices. The executives said the supply chain is unable to retroactively comply with a higher 2014 RFS, which is already 10 months overdue.
-Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. closed a successful open season for its South System Flexibility Project. The project will provide more than 900 miles of north-to-south natural gas transportation capacity from Tennessee to Texas. It will also expand Kinder Morgan’s transportation service to Mexico. MexGas Supply was awarded 100% of the 500,000 dekatherms per day of capacity.
-A new report claims fracking caused hundreds of unnoticeable earthquakes in eastern Ohio between October and December of last year. Via the Associated Press, 10 of the small quakes were intense enough to have temporarily stopped drilling activity under recently enacted permitting rules that weren’t in place at the time. Several studies in different states including Ohio have tied seismic activity to injection wells that contain fracking wastewater.
-BASF appointed Gerry Podesta senior vice president of its Dispersions & Pigments business in North America. He succeeds Derek Fairclough, who will lead BASF’s environmental, health, safety and security unit. Juan Carlos Ordonez will succeed Podesta as senior vice president for the company’s North American Performance Materials business. Christopher Toomey will step into Ordonez’s previous role as head of BASF’s North American coatings business.
-Meanwhile, Apache Corp. CFO Alfonso Leon is resigning after eight months on the job. Leon was appointed to the role in February after previous CFO Tom Chambers moved into the newly created senior vice president of finance position. Apache said Leon is leaving to pursue other opportunities.
