-Brazil state-run oil company Petrobras has shut down a gasoline and LPG unit at its REDUC refinery outside of Rio de Janeiro for emergency repairs, Reuters reports. The union that represents the refinery’s workers said the unit has been malfunctioning for two weeks, causing the leak of catalysts.
-Kinder Morgan will purchase three terminals and an undeveloped site from Royal Vopak for $158 million. The acquisition will include a 36-acre, 1,069,500-barrel storage complex in Galena Park, Texas, that is adjacent to Kinder Morgan’s Galena Park terminal complex. The other terminals are located in North Carolina. The undeveloped site is located on the New Jersey coast in Perth Amboy.
-Williams Partners and DCP Midstream announced first natural gas flow at their new joint venture deepwater Gulf of Mexico pipeline. The 209-mile Keathley Canyon Connector pipeline originates in the southeast portion of the Keathley Canyon protraction area and connects to the Discovery pipeline at a new junction platform . The Discovery system also includes a 600-million-cubic-feet-per-day natural gas processing system in Larose, La., and a 35,000-barrels-per-day fractionation facility in Paradis, La.
-Halliburton is planning to cut 5,000 to 6,000 jobs in response to the oil price plunge. Via the Houston Business Journal, the company said the layoffs are not related to Halliburton’s planned acquisition of Baker Hughes.
-Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a forecast today upstream spending cuts and dwindling rig counts could give oil prices a boost. Via FuelFix, the IEA said any resurgence would be limited in scope, with prices stabilizing at levels considerably lower than the high points of the past three years.
