-Midstream MLP Western Refining Logistics agreed to acquire Western Refining’s southwest wholesale business for $360 million in cash and stock. The deal includes fuel sales of 79,000 barrels per day to third party customers, crude oil trucking operations in the Permian and San Juan basins and a lubricant products distribution business. The two companies will enter into 10-year fuel supply and crude oil trucking agreements with minimum volume commitments from Western Refining.
-French oil giant Total has begun the process of selling its 17% stake in the Gulf of Mexico’s Tahiti oil field, Reuters reports. The sale could fetch up to $2 billion. Total this week announced a divestiture program aimed at unloading $10 billion in global assets. It was reported Wednesday that Total had agreed to sell its Utica Shale midstream assets for $450 million.
-Texas Comptroller Susan Combs is calling for an end to federal subsidies for wind power. Via the Houston Business Journal, Combs said in a report subsidized wind power undermines Texas’ electricity market, provides unreliable service and places undue burden on taxpayers. The wind tax credit — which expired in January — is being debated in Washington, but it is unlikely that any decision will be made before November’s mid-term elections.
-Meanwhile, California is banking on a mixture of biodiesel, renewable diesel and natural gas to meet its Low Carbon Fuel Standard through the end of the decade. Via Platts, the California Air Resources Board said Thursday cellulosic ethanol is unlikely to play a major role due to lagging production. The board has come in for criticism by industry representatives for failing to identify how much U.S. low-carbon-intensity fuel is likely to go to California. Sellers of transportation fuels are required to reduce the fuels’ carbon intensity by 10% by 2020 under the law.
-The EPA on Thursday said it would develop a plan to limit methane emissions by the end of this year. Earlier this week Houston-based E&P firm Southwestern Energy joined a group of international firms that signed on to a voluntary U.N. methane emissions reduction program.
