Pressure is growing for US Congress to address problems with quotas under the Renewable Fuel Standard. Two recent events—a federal bankruptcy court’s approving quota relief under Philadelphia Energy Solutions’ bankruptcy reorganization and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s granting hardship waivers for three small Andeavor refineries in North Dakota and Utah—emphasized that changes are needed soon. […]

Saudi Aramco and Total SA have signed a memorandum of understanding to add an integrated petrochemical complex downstream of their jointly held Saudi Aramco Total Refinery & Petrochemicals Co.’s 440,000-b/d full conversion refinery in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Source: News

Canada is teaching a lesson on sustainability. It’s not the lesson fringy environmentalism, which has preempted the word, wants to convey. Source: News

Supplies of Canadian oil sands heavy crude are increasingly being refined on the US Gulf Coast and could top 1.2 million b/d—a full one third of the region’s heavy oil refining market—by 2020, according to an IHS Markit report. Source: News

Pittsburgh-based Mountain Valley Pipeline proposed a 70-mile extension of the interstate natural gas pipeline to central North Carolina. The MVP Gateway Project would receive gas from the main pipeline in Pittsylvania County, Va., and ship it to Rockingham and Alamance counties, officials said.  Source: News

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s first-quarter energy survey showed moderately accelerated growth in energy activity in the Tenth District. Source: News

Worldwide oil supply will suffer nothing because the government of New Zealand, a minor producer, is ending offshore oil and gas licensing. Source: News