Oil

Walter Joseph Lufkin Jr., 95, a longtime Abington resident and an Atlantic Richfield Co. employee for three decades, died Wednesday, Dec. 19, of cerebrovascular disease at Rydal Park in Jenkintown. Mr. Lufkin joined the Atlantic Refining Co. in 1945. His responsibilities included the field of industrial engineering, which was new at the time, and later, implementation of information technology. In the 1970s, he retired from Atlantic Richfield Co., now part of British Petroleum, with the title systems implementation manager.

Oysters to go Just in time for the holidays, the Oyster House is offering its briny best packed in ice for take-out. All items on the raw menu are available. Preordering (with at least one hour notice) is required. "It's the next best thing to having a shucker in your kitchen," said owner Sam Mink. Take-out oysters ($25-31 a dozen); clams ($13-16 a dozen) at Oyster House, 1516 Sansom St.; 215-567-7683. - Maureen Fitzgerald   Need to know new oil Most olive oils need several months to mellow before they appear on store shelves.

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.

One of the enduring tragedies of fair Ireland, beset by recurring economic woes, is that it loses many of its best and brightest, who, in search of opportunity, emigrate, most often to the United States. A sterling example of this brain drain is Garret FitzGerald, who was born in Dublin, and came here the first time at age 18 to take a summer job driving a Coca-Cola truck. Since then, he has risen fast and far. After earning his medical degree at University College in Dublin, FitzGerald eventually returned to the United States and during the 1980s ran the clinical pharmacology division at Vanderbilt University.

Exelon Generation plans to retire its 58-year-old Schuylkill Generating Station in Grays Ferry at the end of the year, the latest Eisenhower-era power plant to bow out in response to a changing energy environment. Increasingly, the oil-burning plant at 2800 Christian St. has been little used, said Tim Wirth, a spokesman for Exelon's power-generation unit in Kennett Square. "It's older, it's not used very frequently, and it no longer makes economic sense," Wirth said. In the last year, the plant's 166-megawatt main unit was fired up only once to serve the regional power grid.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - Covering nearly 300 football fields in a remote patch of desert, the Shams 1 solar project carries plenty of symbolic significance for the United Arab Emirates. It will be the first large-scale solar project in the oil-rich country when completed at the end of the year, and the largest of its kind in the Middle East. At full capacity, the 100-megawatt, concentrated solar project will be able to power 20,000 homes. For those behind the project, it's the surest sign yet that solar is coming to the region in a big way. "We truly believe solar will be a major contributor to meeting our own requirements," said Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the UAE's special envoy for energy and climate change and the chief executive officer of government-funded Masdar, which is the majority investor in the project.

MONTGOMERY County Commissioner Bruce Castor is mulling a challenge to Gov. Corbett in the 2014 Republican primary. Castor cites three reasons for thinking Corbett is vulnerable. * Corbett's role as state attorney general in the Penn State child- abuse scandal that sent former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to prison is about to get a close review by a Democrat, Attorney General-elect Kathleen Kane. "It could get very uncomfortable for the governor in very short order," Castor said.

PetroChoice Holdings Inc., a Bucks County lubricant distributor, has purchased Craft Oil Corp. of Avoca, Pa. for an undisclosed sum, said Shane O'Kelly, the chief executive of PetroChoice. It was the fourth acquisition this year by PetroChoice, which was founded in 1969 in Bedford County and has been based in Bristol since it acquired Loos & Dilworth Inc. in 2009. PetroChoice provides petroleum-based lubes and services in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest Regions.

WASHINGTON - It's a decision President Obama put off during the 2012 campaign, but now that he has won a second term, his next move on a proposed oil pipeline between the United States and Canada may signal how he will deal with climate and energy issues in the four years ahead. Obama is facing increasing pressure to determine the fate of the $7 billion Keystone XL project, with environmental activists and oil producers each holding out hope that the president, freed from the political constraints of reelection, will side with them on this and countless other related issues down the road.

Coal trains stopped trundling over Darby Creek into Exelon Corp.'s Eddystone generating station some time ago, after the utility announced plans to retire its coal-fired power generation units. By this time next year, a train could begin rolling in daily to Eddystone carrying Bakken crude oil from North Dakota for use at Philadelphia-area refineries. On Monday, Enbridge Inc. , of Calgary, Alberta, said it has agreed with a Philadelphia-area partner to form the Eddystone Rail Co. and convert the train facility at the generating station from one capable of handling coal hoppers to tank cars.