GLG News by Oil and Gas Refining Experts (North America)

The International Herald Tribune brings in the open the dilemma of the US power companies.  Their efforts to meet increased power demands with pulverized coal fired power plants has been stymied by negative reactions of the financial community due to unforeseen carbon tax risks and, of course,...

Alberta estimates their recoverable bitumen are about 175 billion barrels. making Canada's oil reserves second to those of Saudi Arabia. This has been excellent news for the reliable supply of syncrude to the US refineries. Of course, the pioneer days are over and a shakeout is in progress due to increased...

Hydrocarbon Processing reported in the February 2008 issue that the EPA has now classified gasification process units located within refineries as basic refinery production units. The refineries are now allowed to recycle oil bearing hazardous secondary materials to increase clean fuel production and/or...

Sinopec and Sabic are planning a $1.7 billion ethylene derivatives complex in Tianjin, China.  This is the first potential JV in China for Sabic, Saudi Basic Industries Corp.  China is an important market for Sabic in their stride to become one of the leading global petrochemical companie...

US Automotive Tier suppliers have been squeezed between rising material costs and unrelenting pressure from OEMs to lower prices.  As more major Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers seek bankruptcy protection OEMs must consider drastic changes in long term supply chain management to ensure their industry's...

It is hard to believe DOE supported a government work project called "FutureGen" to open up "clean coal" projects for the coal and coal power companies without a reality check on economics of their unfocused ideas without any patent positions.  Of course, when the project budget exceeded $7,000/kW...

Bio fuels suffer from a simple law of nature, Total Energy out versus Energy -in. The synthetic fuels issue is a niche play as the magnitude of energy consumed is of such great magnitude that ethanol and other forms of synthetic fuels cannot supply a significant portion of the demand curve. The costs...

While we are talking about coal to SNG, power and chemicals China recently has nearly built twenty plants to provide a clean syngas as building block for the chemical industry for plastics and pharmaceuticals. GE and Shell are the leading technology licensors.

Biofuels starve the poor in underdeveloped areas.  Nobody has really paid attention to the the origin of crude and NG: vegetation and dinosaurs and other living organisms.  Mother earth has provided the recipe to give us crude and NG from the past and the wheel does not have to be reinvented...

In order to become a full energy company participating in the whole value chain Gazprom plans to sell gas and power directly to EU customers. The U.K. has been selected as an entry point through GM&T (Gazprom Marketing & Trading), located in London.  At this point in time the EU is trying...