BEIJING / Reuters Independent oil refiners in China’s Shandong province are planning to form a consortium to integrate their production of oil products and petrochemicals, according to a planning document reviewed by Reuters. Since late 2015, China has allowed 31 mostly privately-owned oil refineries to import crude oil, the majority of them based in Shandong province. With a combined capacity …

Bloomberg The UK North Sea is on track for the biggest year of oil and gas field startups in a decade, continuing the aging province’s surprising resilience to the crude-market slump. Fourteen projects with combined peak production of 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day will start in the region this year, according to data from consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd. …

Bloomberg Hurricane Harvey’s crushing blow to the US energy industry reveals just how dependent Mexico has become on natural gas from its northern neighbor. The storm’s wrath forced cross-border gas pipelines in Texas to shut and prevented tankers from loading cargoes of the fuel. Mexican consumers, who are burning record amounts of gas from America’s prolific shale basins, had no …