"Welcome to Houston, the petcoke capitol of the free world - and if petcoke prices keep falling as they have over the past few months - the free petcoke capitol of the world," Oxbow Carbon & Minerals' South American executive said in greeting about 100 petcoke producers, resellers and end users last week at McCloskey's Petcoke Conference. In reviewing what has happened in the recent past, Oxbow's sometimes tongue-in-cheek Joe Kulbeth said, "Dynegy is dying, El Paso is practically passe, Enron is in ruins, and so our baseball field is now named after a major brand of concentrated frozen orange juice. "Yet, you can always count on one thing, and that's oil use - it continues to grow. Refineries are expanding, and that means more and more petcoke production, creating events like this where industry experts get together to discuss the philosophical meaning of it all."
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