North America update

California

The Rodeo oil refinery owned by ConocoPhillips unexpectedly released fumes on Friday 22^nd October. A volume of strong smelling gas was released over Contra Costa County at 11 am as the refinery flare could not keep up with the amount of waste that needed to be burnt off.

Valero is planning on carrying out maintenance at the Benicia refinery early next year. The facility will but shut for five weeks for work throughout the plant. The whole refinery was last taken offline in 2004, also for planned plant maintenance.

Louisiana

On Monday 25^th October, the ConocoPhillips refinery in Westlake experienced some unplanned flaring. This was due to a unit upset at the facility.

ExxonMobil Corp. also experienced an upset at its Baton Rouge refinery. The release came from the facility’s butadiene production unit. However, there is some good news from the refinery. A new unit has come online at the facility for the production of diesel with only 5% sulfur content. Unit construction began at the end of 2008.

PBF Energy Co. LLC

PBF Energy has announced their interest in purchasing more assets in the US. The company has already purchased two refineries on the US East Coast. The Paulsboro refinery was purchased from Valero and the Delaware city was also purchased from Valero.

Texas

Valero Energy Corp. has experienced emissions at the Corpus Christi West refinery. The flaring occurred when a storage tank was brought back online at the facility after maintenance.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/gas-processing/27102010/north_america_update1/