Environmental experts warn that U.S. plans under President Donald Trump to restart and control Venezuelan oil exports could intensify pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and ecological damage in a country already burdened by decades of oil-related degradation.

Venezuela’s current oil production infrastructure “has been held together by string and gum,” said Fernando Valle at Hedgeye Risk Management.

While any investment by US companies in rejuvenating Venezuelan oil production could take time, Gulf Coast refiners are well positioned to hoover up crude shipments as soon as sanctions are eased and more import permits are granted, something analysts say could happen quickly.

Refiner Phillips 66 can run Venezuelan crude at two U.S. Gulf Coast refineries as production ramps up, Chief Financial Officer Kevin Mitchell said. Mitchell said its Lake Charles and Sweeny refineries in Texas have the capacity to process a couple of hundred thousand barrels per day of Venezuelan crudes.

UC Santa Cruz chemists have discovered a new way to produce biodiesel from waste oil that both simplifies the process and requires relatively mild heat. This discovery has the potential to make the alternative fuel source much more appealing to the massive ...

For oil markets, Venezuela is a footnote in an age of abundance. For Middle East, the US move is a dangerous reminder.

Researchers developed a biorefinery model in BioSTEAM to evaluate industrial-grade azelaic acid production from high-oleic soybean oil using the two-step oxidative cleavage (TSOC) process. The modeled system demonstrated the potential for financially viable azelaic acid production from high-oleic soybean oil and the utility of techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) for evaluating and improving performance.