Monroe Energy News

Refiners from the Midwest United States are fighting for access to a vital Pennsylvania pipeline – a move that could cripple their East Coast competitors and redraw the map for international flows of crude and fuel into coveted coastal markets. The regulatory dispute centers on a proposal by pipeline operator Buckeye Partners’ to that state's Public Utilities Commission. The plan would reverse the flow of fuels on a section of Buckeye’s 350-mile Laurel Pipeline, which currently flows from the East Coast to Pittsburgh. Because pipelines only flow in one direction, the change would effectively block five East Coast refineries from serving Pittsburgh – with Midwest refiners picking up their market share.

U.S. East Coast refiners are looking to buy increasing volumes of domestic crude oil from the Gulf Coast, two sources said, the latest twist in a trade flow upheaval in the wake of the opening of the Dakota Access pipeline. Major U.S. East Coast refiners profited from railing hundreds of thousands of barrels of discounted Bakken crude to their plants daily from 2013 until 2015. But as more and more pipelines were built in North Dakota, the discount began to disappear, and so did the rail cars. Now, at least two East Coast refiners, Phillips 66 and Delta Air Lines Inc's subsidiary Monroe Energy, are looking to move more crude by ship from Texas into the Philadelphia area.

The U.S. Marshals Service has blocked a vessel headed to the Monroe Energy refinery outside of Philadelphia from leaving the port in connection with a civil court order, the federal agency said.   The order was issued by a civil court judge in Eastern federal court related to failure to make payments, the federal agency said on Friday.   The vessel's name is Advantage Avenue, the federal agency said.   (Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Chris Reese)

The U.S. oil refining industry's association is not opposed to lifting the country's 40-year-old ban on crude exports as long as the move is part of a bigger effort to lower barriers to trade, the group's new head said on Tuesday. "We're not opposed to lifting the export ban, but we would like to think there could be a broader discussion," about all trade barriers in petroleum markets, Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), told reporters. Other trade barriers include the Jones Act, which requires ships servicing coastal businesses to be built in the United States and mostly staffed by U.S.

A government study on Thursday essentially supported the notion that easing the decades-old restriction on exporting U.S. crude was more likely to lower than raise gasoline prices for American motorists, a conclusion that could ease concerns among lawmakers about changing the policy. U.S. gasoline prices are mainly set by global oil prices, the Energy Information Administration said in a highly anticipated analysis. "The effect that a relaxation of current limitations on U.S. crude oil exports would have on U.S. gasoline prices would likely depend on its effect on international crude oil prices, such as Brent, rather than its effect on domestic crude prices," said the EIA.

More than a dozen U.S. oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters hope would create jobs and boost national security, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday. Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, is the first lobbying group to form on reversing the ban. "The end game here is legislative repeal of the ban," said a lobbyist for one of the member producers, who did not want to be named because the group was only recently formed. Congress passed the trade restriction in the 1970s after the Arab oil embargo caused fears of domestic oil shortages.

As the first U.S. oil condensate exports head to Asia from the Gulf Coast, crude producers and refiners are exploring ways to get around a century-old law that makes it three times more expensive to ship by water between U.S. ports than to sail to a foreign port. The Jones Act, originally passed to protect the U.S. maritime industry, restricts passage between U.S. ports to ships that are U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged and U.S.-crewed. If oil exports pick up pace while the Jones Act is left in place, U.S.

Delta Air Lines Inc's refining unit has chartered a U.S.-flagged oil tanker for the first time, allowing it to tap directly into cheap Texas shale oil as the company overhauls its supply strategy. Monroe Energy LLC, the Delta subsidiary that runs the airline's 165,000 barrel per day (bpd) Trainer refinery, has time-chartered the 330,000-barrel MR Seabulk Arctic, a Jones Act vessel built in 1998, for two years beginning in August, according to sources familiar with the deal. A Delta spokesman confirmed the charter but provided no further details. It has an option to switch to a newly build ship in 2016 for an additional three years. Seabulk Tankers Inc…

Four U.S. oil refiners, trying to counter growing calls to lift the nation's ban on most crude oil exports, have launched the first major lobbying effort to keep abundant U.S. oil supplies from being sold overseas. Rising U.S. shale oil production has opened the door to a possible revision of the decades-old policy restricting most exports of unrefined petroleum. Various groups and lawmakers favoring exports have been fast out of the gate, seizing on a comment by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in December that it might be time to take another look at the law. Philip Rinaldi, chief executive of Philadelphia Energy Solutions, said the anti-export group Consumers and Refiners United for Domestic Energy, or CRUDE, was formed with the goal of preventing a hasty reversal of policy.

Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay watchstanders received notification of the spill at approximately 1 p.m. Monday (local time) after the National Response Center informed of an estimated 1,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the Delaware River near Monroe Energy LLC, located about one mile south of the Commodore Barry Bridge. A boom is deployed to contain the oil while responders use skimmers and vacuums to remove the oil from the water. A pollution response team from Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay is on scene to verify safe and thorough cleanup operations.

The Coast Guard Marine Industry Training Program offers incredible opportunities for Coast Guard employees to intimately learn specific facets of the marine industry. Participants of the program work directly for industry partners for up to 1 year. In addition to building superior government/industry working relationships, the program affords industry sponsors an opportunity to share detailed business considerations and limitations, so that Coast Guard regulatory activities most effectively promote safety, while limiting undue burden on the maritime industry.