Anticipating The Weekend -- European Forecast: Really, Really Cold -- February 21, 2018

This should be interesting to watch. Weather forecasters suggest this weekend could be the beginning of a particularly harsh cold wave stretching well into Europe, and south into Italy.

Link here.

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PES

Folks may remember this story:

• 2012: Philadelphia dying; refinery dying
• 2013: Philadelphia could become next "Cushing"; refiner will become single largest consumer of Bakken crude oil; CBR
• 2017: refinery bankrupt

I've blogged about this refinery on at least three occasions. This was a big, big deal at one time. Now, it's a big deal, but, sadly, for a different reason.

Previous posts:

• green energy scam will cost 1,100 Americans their jobs, January 22, 2018
• refiner to receive Bakken crude oil, October 3, 2013
• Philadelphia, the next "Cushing"? May 21, 2013
• single largest consumer of Bakken crude oil, February 22, 2013 

Today a Reuters story on a Ted Cruz rally at the refinery.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump's administration to push for an overhaul of the nation's biofuels policy to save refinery jobs, during a rally at bankrupt oil refiner Philadelphia Energy Solutions in Pennsylvania.

The rally comes as the oil industry and the corn lobby clash over the causes of the Philadelphia-area refiner's insolvency, which has become a touchstone in the debate over whether the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard needs to be rewritten.

The decade-old regulation requires U.S. refiners to blend biofuels like corn-based ethanol into their fuel, or buy credits from those who do. While it has created a lucrative market for corn states like Iowa and Nebraska, refiners like Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) that have no blending facilities say it is unfair and costly.

PES, which employs more than a thousand people, declared bankruptcy in January and placed the blame squarely at the feet of the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The corn industry has pushed back, pointing out that other refining companies are raking in their biggest profits in years, and suggesting PES' problems may have had more to do with regional refining economics and management choices.

Reuters reported that PES' investor backers - led by the Carlyle Group - withdrew at least $594 million in a series of dividend-style distributions from PES since 2012, most of them backed by loans the company ultimately could not repay. The distributions, combined with a shift in U.S. energy economics, made complying with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) challenging for PES.