Downstream

Progress at Mexico’s biggest energy infrastructure project, the Dos Bocas refinery in Tabasco state, was slowed this week by heavy rains that flooded the construction site, adding to mounting criticism that the project as currently designed is a drain on state funds and part of a poorly designed energy policy. Analysts at Eurasia Group on…

Houston-based Andros Capital Partners said Tuesday it has completed an inaugural $250 million fund to target investments across the energy sector. The private equity firm, founded earlier this year by managing partner Phillip A. Gayle Jr., is considering “private equity investments, credit opportunities and direct asset-level investments” for the Andros Energy Capital LP fund. Middle-market…

The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on Wednesday announced a final rule updating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations, a controversial move designed to limit reviews of proposed infrastructure projects, including natural gas and oil pipelines. The final rule would modernize environmental reviews, streamline infrastructure approvals and “reverse years of burdensome overregulation…

FERC has denied a request from three environmental groups to rehear a 2017 order authorizing the Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress projects, a pair of TransCanada Corp. efforts to increase natural gas pipeline capacity out of the Appalachian Basin by expanding the company’s Columbia Gas Transmission LLC’s system.

Four natural gas pipeline projects were approved by FERC Thursday, but Commissioners continued their struggle to find common ground on their role in determining each project’s potential effects on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Driven by the Permian Basin, ExxonMobil Corp. reported stronger upstream production and raised its projections in the play, but the solid operational news came as downstream and chemical results pulled first quarter profits down on “challenging industry margin environments.”

The energy sector, an underperformer in the S&P 500 since oil prices peaked in 2014, is facing a reckoning to entice investors after ending 2018 “solidly” in last place, according to Deloitte.

Chevron Corp. has earmarked $20 billion for organic capital and exploratory spending in 2019, a near-$2 billion boost year/year, with $7.6 billion specifically targeting the U.S. upstream.

A phalanx of environmental and community organizations last Thursday asked FERC to reconsider approvals of enhancement work on the Dominion Energy Transmission Inc.’s New Market natural gas pipeline project in New York.