-A G.C. Zarnas & Co. employee was killed in a sandblasting incident at PBF Refining’s facility in Greenwich Township, N.J., Friday morning. Via the South Jersey Times, 63-year-old Gary Grimming died when an air compressor line broke and struck him in the head. G.C. Zarnas had been hired to sandblast and paint one of the refinery’s tanks.
-Chevron Phillips Chemical completed the sale of its Ryton PPS business to Solvay for $220 million. The sale includes the Ryton PPS unit at Chevron Phillips’ facility in Borger, Texas, a pilot plant and R&D assets in Bartlesville, Okla., and certain intellectual property related to Ryton. Chevron Phillips will retain its compounding plant in La Porte, Texas, and operate it exclusively for Solvay.
-ConocoPhillips announced first oil production from its Eldfisk II project in the Norwegian North Sea. It is ConocoPhillips’ second major project startup offshore Norway since late 2013, when it started up its Ekofisk South project. ConocoPhillips expects its offshore Norway projects will add 60,000 barrels per day to its production volumes by 2017.
-Sand producers face uncertainty this year as demand from fracking companies is expected to flatten amid the oil price plunge. Via the Wall Street Journal, roughly 60% of sand companies’ business is tied to fracking, but experts belive many oil and gas companies could target those firms when identifying spending cuts.
-California Gov. Jerry Brown today rolled out a plan to generate half of the state’s electricity from renewable sources over the next 15 years. Via Reuters, Brown said the state is already on track to meet its goal of generating a third of its electricity from renewables within the next five years. Under his newly announced plan, Brown said he would aim to reduce petroleum usage by drivers, double the energy efficiency of existing buildings and make heating fuels cleaner.
