Conocophillips

Shares of Delta Air Lines rose 5 percent after the carrier said Monday that it expected a second-quarter profit of $75 million to $100 million at its oil refinery in Trainer. Delta also said the current quarter would be the airline's first profitable March quarter since 2000. "Running an oil refinery, much like running an airline, is not for the faint of heart," Delta president Edward Bastian told a JPMorgan conference. He said operational issues kept the refinery at 75 percent capacity in January and February.

Exelon's Eddystone Generating Station was destined to become one more weedy waterfront site after the region's last coal-fired power plant shut down in May. That was before Jack Galloway, a man on a mission, helped form the Eddystone Rail Co. The rail venture, announced Nov. 26, has ambitions far larger than the few miles of track that encircle the plant in Delaware County. The project's aim is to bring North Dakota crude oil by rail to Eddystone, where it will be transferred to barges and transported to refineries along the Delaware or in New York harbor.

Pennsylvania and Delaware lawmakers on Tuesday asked for a federal analysis of the impact of closing three Philadelphia area refineries, which account for 31 percent of the East Coast's refining capacity. The legislators asked the U.S. Energy Information Administration to assess the economic impact of the closures, including the regional effect on prices and supply of motor fuels, heating oil, and chemical products. In September, Sunoco Inc. and ConocoPhillips announced their Philadelphia, Marcus Hook, and Trainer facilities would be sold or closed.

Sunoco Inc.'s oil refinery in Philadelphia has at least four potential buyers, and ConocoPhillips has one, and possibly two, offers for its idled Trainer refinery, an oil analyst with an independent trade publication said Monday. "The entire dynamic of the U.S. East Coast markets may be about to change," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with the Oil Price Information Service in a note to subscribers. Kloza said bids for the Sunoco plant were due Monday and "multiple sources" in refinery mergers and acquisitions have told him there were "at least four tenders" for Sunoco.

DELAWARE CITY, Del. - Wall Street came to the oil refinery here Friday to celebrate with workers and elected officials the reopening of a facility that once was losing $1 million a day. Backed by private-equity firms Blackstone Group L.P. and First Reserve Corp., PBF Holding Co. L.L.C. bought the 190,000 barrel-per-day refinery for $220 million in June 2010. They spent more than a year and an additional $450 million bringing the 5,000-acre site back into service after the previous owner, Valero Energy Co., hurriedly shut the refinery in November 2009.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission on Thursday approved the transfer of pipelines connected with the ConocoPhillips refinery in Trainer, removing an obstacle to the refinery's sale to Delta Air Lines Inc. The PUC approved the late-hour request on a fast track after the companies involved in the sale realized that some pipelines came under the jurisdiction of the utility commission, and that regulatory approval was required. The application was filed on May 25. Commission chairman Robert F. Powelson extolled the PUC's contribution to efforts to assist in the Delaware County refinery's sale, which is being supported with $30 million in grants from the Corbett administration.

It is with a serious leap of faith — if not a plentiful supply of antacids — that small business owners take the plunge into the terrifyingly unpredictable world of entrepreneurship. But Mario Giambrone thought he was leaping into a pretty sure thing a little more than four years ago. He was opening Italiano's restaurant in Marcus Hook, a small town bursting with hungry lunch crowds. On one end was the Sunoco refinery, spread over 781 acres and employing nearly 600 people.

After a year of record prices for oil and natural gas, the world's energy companies are stepping up spending on exploration and production. That's good news for consumers. It means the companies, private and state-owned, are hunting for supplies to replace what's consumed and to meet surging global demand. The prices consumers pay are not likely to come down, because demand is growing so dramatically. Global oil consumption, for example, is forecast to grow from 82 million barrels per day now to 111 million barrels per day over the next 20 years - a 35 percent increase.

The U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee will hold a hearing in April on the potential consumer impact of the shutdown of oil refineries, including three refineries in the Philadelphia area that represent half the refining capacity in the Northeast. "Rising gas prices coupled with decreasing refining capacity on the East Coast raise serious questions about our ability to ensure an adequate supply of affordable fuel for American consumers," said U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.)

Wholesale gasoline futures in the Northeast surged Wednesday after a giant oil refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands announced it was closing next month, the latest petroleum processor to call it quits. Hovensa L.L.C., a joint venture of U.S.-based Hess Corp. and Venezuela's state-owned oil company, announced it will cease operating its 350,000-barrel-a-day refinery in St. Croix. The plant provided 83,000 barrels a day of gasoline and 47,000 barrels of distillate fuel like heating oil and diesel to the U.S. Northeast, according to the Energy Department.