Refining: link here.
From the linked article (I'm kind of surprised Charles Kennedy didn't write this article):
While some U.S. refiners are scaling back, Saudi Arabia’s Motiva Enterprises just made a power move. The Saudi Aramco-owned refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, has quietly expanded its capacity, now processing a record 654,000 barrels per day—officially making it the largest refinery in the United States above Exxon’s Beaumont and Marathon’s Galveston Bay.
Motiva pulled this off without a flashy billion-dollar project—just good old-fashioned optimization, removing bottlenecks in the system to squeeze out more production. And they did it at a time when smaller, less efficient refineries are dropping like flies. LyondellBasell’s Houston plant is closing. Phillips 66’s Los Angeles refinery is shutting down.
Unlike its smaller refining peers, Port Arthur is doubling down, proving that size absolutely matters in refining.
Motiva’s expansion fits into a bigger industry shift, where mega-refineries are getting even bigger while smaller plants either shut down or pivot to biofuels. The rationale? If you can’t be nimble, be massive. And while U.S. refiners whine about demand uncertainties and ESG pressures, Aramco isn’t here to play defense—it’s here to dominate.
The real question now is whether Motiva will finally pull the trigger on its long-rumored petrochemical expansion.
Back in 2021, Aramco was considering pouring $6.6 billion into turning Port Arthur into a full-fledged petrochem hub—a move that would’ve put the plant even further ahead of its competition. That plan seemed to fizzle out, but given this latest expansion, it might just be back on the table.
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The Book Page
Rivian: despite all the spin by talking heads about how great Rivian is doing especially now that Rivian has been given the go-ahead to sell its vehicles to all comers, the ticker is not reflecting that great news --
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The Book Page
From Amazon:
Partisanship is a dirty word in American politics.
If there is one issue on which almost everyone in our divided country seems to agree, it’s the belief that the intense loyalty within the electorate toward Democrats and Republicans is the source of our democratic ills—division, dysfunction, distrust, and disinformation.
The possibilities that responsible partisanship can offer were at the heart of an important intellectual tradition that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, one which was institutionalized through a sweeping set of congressional reforms in the 1970s and 1980s.
In Defense of Partisanship reimagines what partisanship might look like going forward from today. A new era of party-oriented reforms has the potential to pay respect to the deep differences that divide us—simultaneously creating a more functional path on which two responsible political parties compete to shape policy while still being able to govern.
The author:
Julian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, a CNN political analyst and a contributor to NPR’s "Here & Now." He is the author and editor of numerous books, most recently Myth America and Burning Down the House. He lives in New York City.
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SpaceX Launches
February 11, 2025
SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral: successful.
