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CHANNELVIEW, Texas — For nearly 20 years, Texas environmental regulators have kept a disturbing secret. AdvertisementTexas Community Health News; Texas Commission on Environmental Quality"Any exposure to a carcinogen increases your risk of developing cancer. AdvertisementTim Doty, a former TCEQ mobile air monitoring expert, at the industrial edge of River Terrace Park in Channelview, Texas. In fact, the agency rarely fines companies that violate Texas air pollution laws. Mark FelixHoneycutt's toxicology division soon took an even more dramatic step to weaken Texas' benzene guidelines.

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☆ BP settles US natgas market manipulation case for $10.75 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) alleged that BP violated the Natural Gas Act by manipulating the next-day gas market at Houston Ship Channel from mid-September through Nov. 30, 2008. BP paid a civil penalty of $24,356,686 in December 2020 and disgorgement of unjust profits of $250,295 in January 2021 in the case. FERC said under the settlement BP will not seek return of the $250,295 of disgorgement it has paid. The case related to actions by BP traders to take advantage of market dislocations around the time Hurricane Ike smashed into the Houston area in September 2008. FERC's Office of Enforcement alleged BP traders made uneconomic physical gas sales to suppress the Houston Ship Channel Gas Daily index and boost the value of BP's financial position.

Persons: Ike, Scott DiSavino, Bill Berkrot Organizations: Bp, BP, U.S . Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Houston Ship Channel, U.S ., Appeals, Fifth Circuit, FERC, U.S . Court, Federal, FERC's, Enforcement, Houston Ship Channel Gas, Thomson Locations: U.S, Houston

☆ Fire burns for third day at Shell Texas chemical plant
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Erwin Seba | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HOUSTON, May 7 (Reuters) - A fire burned for a third day on Sunday at Shell Plc's (SHEL.L) chemical plant in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, Texas, a company spokesperson said. The fire initially ignited on Friday afternoon in an explosion in an olefins unit, used to make plastics and rubber. The fire was extinguished for a few hours on Saturday morning before it reignited around 3 p.m. CDT (2000 GMT), said Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith. Water runoff has exceeded the chemical plant's wastewater capacity and is being diverted into the Houston Ship Channel, Smith said. Olefins units are the central units in petrochemical complexes, producing ethylene, butadiene and propylene from hydrocarbon feedstocks.

☆ Living and Breathing on the Front Line of a Toxic Chemical Zone
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Eric Lipton | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Juan López had just returned home from his job supervising the cleaning of giant tanks that hold toxic chemicals produced along the Houston Ship Channel, one of the largest petrochemical complexes in the world. He was ready to sit down to dinner with his wife, Pamela López, and their four school-age children at their small house across the highway from the plants. “I make good money where I’m at,” he said. “But I always felt like it was only me that was getting exposed, because I am working in the tanks with the chemicals. When the smell comes, all we can really do is try to keep everyone inside.

☆ Valero profit beats estimates on higher fuel demand, tight supplies
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] The Valero refinery next to the Houston Ship Channel is seen in Houston, Texas, U.S., May 5, 2019. REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File PhotoCompanies Valero Energy Corp FollowJan 26 (Reuters) - Valero Energy Corp (VLO.N) zoomed passed Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on Thursday, wrapping up the refiner's best year on record, boosted by higher demand for fuel and healthy refining margins as crude supplies remained tight. U.S. refineries operated at record levels last year, aided by a quick recovery in domestic sales and strong exports demand following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Valero refineries operated at 97% capacity utilization rate in the fourth quarter, the highest since 2018. Valero Energy, the second-largest U.S. refiner by capacity, said quarterly refining throughput volumes averaged 3.04 million barrels per day (bpd), slightly above the year-ago quarter.

☆ The big new Exxon Mobil climate change deal that got an assist from Joe Biden
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Tim Mullaney | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

The law may help oil companies like ExxonMobil build profitable businesses to replace some of the revenue and profit they'll lose as EVs proliferate. Maybe, if carbon capture and storage is indeed as big a deal as ExxonMobil's first-of-its-kind deal to extract, transport and store carbon from other companies' factories implies. Could it be that Big Oil's next big thing got a big assist from Joe Biden? An industrial facility on the Houston Ship Channel where Exxon Mobil is proposing a carbon capture and sequestration network. And big oil and gas companies are where the expertise is."

☆ Valero, Marathon top beneficiaries of U.S. emergency oil releases
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Arathy Somasekhar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File PhotoHOUSTON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Oil refiners Valero Energy Corp (VLO.N) and Marathon Petroleum Corp (MPC.N) are the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. government's oil reserve releases, taking nearly half the crude offered, a Reuters analysis of Department of Energy data showed on Wednesday. The Biden administration has opened spigots at the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to lower fuel prices and ease a supply crunch from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Awards of about 218 million barrels for the 12 months endedSept. Valero, the second largest U.S. refiner by capacity, secured 52.7 million, while top oil processor Marathon Petroleum snapped up 45.2 million barrels. About 24.42 million barrels were released by exchange, with the largest amounts taken by Exxon and Shell.

☆ Fed up with high gas prices and slow Amazon deliveries? Blame these 2 century-old laws that need to be repealed.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-13 | by ( Colin Grabow | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

A well-oiled transportation system is vital to keeping the economy humming — especially in a country as large as the United States. Unfortunately, Americans' ability to get resources where they need to go has been crippled by a pair of outdated laws: the Jones Act and the Foreign Dredge Act. As with Jones Act ships, hopper dredges constructed in US shipyards are significantly more expensive than those built abroad. But despite these huge costs, the Jones Act and the Foreign Dredge Act survive largely intact. The Jones Act and the Foreign Dredge Act are just two examples among many, and behind each one lies an entrenched interest group dedicated to its preservation.

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