A May 8 White House meeting which tried to address some refiners’ problems with meeting quotas under the Renewable Fuel Standard apparently did not offer adequate solutions to the regulation’s problems, an American Petroleum Institute official suggested on May 14. Source: News

Royal Dutch Shell PLC subsidiary Shell Nanhai BV and China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s 50-50 joint venture CNOOC & Shell Petrochemicals Co. Ltd. (CSPC) has commissioned a second ethylene cracker at its existing petrochemical complex in the Daya Bay Economic & Technological Development Zone, Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China. Source: News

Global consumption of natural gas, paced by “huge growth” in China, rose last year at more than twice the average rate of the previous 5 years, reported Cedigaz, the International Association of Natural Gas, Paris. Source: News

The US Bureau of Land Management cited nearly 3 years of experience and considerable feedback from states and other stakeholders as it formally proposed revisions to six plans covering management of greater sage grouse habitat in seven Western US states in the May 4 Federal Register. Source: News

If there ever was any doubt, New York and New Jersey’s governors separately announced, once again, that they do not want oil and gas activity off their respective states’ coasts. This includes onshore infrastructure, they added. Source: News

Russia’s oil and gas exports have continued to rise despite multilateral Western sanctions and an energy strategy that is not being aggressively pursued, the director of the Moscow School of Management’s Energy Center told a Washington audience. Source: News

Among all possible outcomes of US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal, diminished exports of crude by the Islamic Republic might be the least consequential for oil prices. Source: News