-ExxonMobil is planning to install a new residual flash tower at its refinery in Slagen, Norway. The unit will allow the refinery to produce high quality vacuum gas oil, which will replace production of heavy fuel oil. ExxonMobil continues to invest in its European downstream business despite an overall downturn in the continent’s refining sector. In July the company said it would spend more than $1 billion to build a new delayed coker unit in Antwerp, Belgium.
-Westlake Chemical has restarted its Petro-1 steam cracker in Lake Charles, La., Platts reports. The unit was shut down Aug. 28.
-Boardwalk Pipeline agreed to buy Chevron Petrochemical Pipeline LLC, which owns the 176-mile Evangeline ethylene pipeline, for $295 million. The Evangeline line is capable of transporting approximately 2.6 billion pounds of ethylene per year and extends from Port Neches, Texas, to Baton Rouge, La. Boardwalk plans to connect the pipeline to its storage facilities in Lake Charles, La.
-Atlantic Richfield and DuPont agreed to pay $20 million in an industrial contamination settlement with the EPA and the state of Indiana. The EPA and the Justice Department said lead smelting, refining and other processes led to contamination in a neighborhood of East Chicago, Ind., from the early 1900s through 1985. It was reported last week that DuPont would pay $1.3 million in fines as a result of chemical leaks that occurred at its Belle, W.Va., production facility between 2006 and 2010.
-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Wednesday indicated the agency is set to act on methane emissions from oil and gas operations. Via FuelFix, McCarthy said the next step could come in the form of regulations or an expansion of voluntary programs. The EPA already requires companies to capture VOCs when fracking natural gas wells, a process that also captures methane. The agency has yet to decide whether or not to extend such rules to oil wells.
