Center stage: Rising U.S. crude oil exports are boosting the prominence of Gulf Coast price benchmarks and buoying trading volumes on Houston contracts, eroding the significance of the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub. Read more from Reuters.  Robotics club: BREC is turning to a robot to paint its soccer, football and lacrosse fields. Turf Tank, a robot that can autonomously paint fields using a GPS signal, helps the agency as well as schools around Louisiana save money, as one machine can paint a field in less than eight hours. Read more from WBRZ-TV.  Shut down: A fire marshal shut down a public hearing for a proposed ammonia production facility in Louisiana as public interest surged and crowds overflowed a public library in St. Charles Parish. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality had scheduled the hearing to receive public comments on the proposed $4.6 billion St. Charles Clean Fuels ammonia production facility. Read more from WVLA-TV.