The world's largest independent oil trader, Vitol Group, has signed a 10-year agreement with Norwegian tire recycling start-up, Wastefront, to purchase 30,000 tons per year of its liquid hydrocarbons.

What's going down:

Wastefront is taking waste tires, chopping them up, and using pyrolysis to create "naphtha, distillates and bunker oil". The company's first tire recycling plant, complete with 12 pyrolytic reactors, won't come online until it is complete in 2023. Vitol is coming in to make sure that what Wastefront produces makes it to market.

A little perspective:

30,000 tons per year is equivalent to about 220,000 barrels of oil (the average refinery does more than that in a couple of days). Long-term Wastefront isn't concerned—nearly 29 million tons of tires reach end-of-life each year, and you have to start somewhere.

Read the press release here.

Privately-held midstream company, Easton Energy, has announced that is has purchased ExxonMobil's South Texas Pipeline System for an undisclosed sum.

More on the pipelines:

The system contains about 720 miles of pipeline, stretching all the way from Houston down to Corpus Christi. Easton's acquisition nearly triples Easton's pipeline portfolio by mileage and will connect a lot of dots for Easton's other assets. Now the midstream company will be able to capitalize on South Texas' growing petrochemical market.

Why is Exxon selling the pipeline?

While Exxon hasn't released a statement on the matter (they are busy refuting a story from the New York Times), it's probably safe to make a couple of assumptions here. Exxon has been hit hard by the pandemic, and balancing the books may require a second look at its non-revenue generating assets. Perhaps those pipelines are providing Exxon with some of the cash it's looking for.

Read the press release here.

Minneapolis-based utilities holding company, Xcel Energy, and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have formed a private-public partnership to demonstrate clean hydrogen production.

Not your typical way of doing it:

As a reminder, most of the hydrogen we use today is produced by the steam reforming of methane. We see green hydrogen in this newsletter quite a bit, but so far we've only ever discussed the low-temperature electrolysis of water. This demonstration will be unique because the hydrogen will be produced by the high-temperature electrolysis of steam at a nuclear power plant.

Bigger picture:

The nuclear power debate has been going on for a while now. If nuclear power plants can also provide cost-effective green hydrogen it may put an end to some of the fighting. In the short-term the hydrogen produced will be used by the power plant, but eventually, it will be sold to other industries (steel, ammonia, etc.).

Read the press release here.