Phillips 66 closing California refinery

The average age of US refineries is 75 years. We haven't built any new ones in decades. Things haven't changed much, so yes could easily be maintained for continued use. California is suing all the major oil companies including Phillips 66 for "causing climate change", so likely the main reason for leaving.

My question for the prosecutors of said lawsuit. Did they ever drive a ICE car anywhere and also contribute? The state still lets petroleum be sold, so how can they sue the producers of it? Hypocrite much?
What are these refineries?

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=29&t=6
 
How many major expansions of existing refineries happened during that timeframe. (Example: ExxonMobil in Beaumont Texas brought capacity up from 369,000 bpd to 609.000 bpd that came on line in 2023...)

The refinery near me has grown from 130,000 bpd to to its current capacity of 375,000 bpd since 1979...

Often forgotten in the we haven't built anything "new" is the the major expansions that have taken place...
BMT has also taken the Mobil 1 production from other places - what are often called expansions are upgrades - what are often called turnarounds include upgrades … Evolution means solutions …
 
Hasn’t been any large new refineries since like 1976 IIRC. Mainly because everyone is a NIMBY on this issue, but just like with nuclear, the requirements are so tight now that both the risks and potential impacts to the community are minimal.

The thing I think that gets missed would be all of the jobs and resultant tax base improvements for a community if something like this was done near them…
When it comes to refineries and chemical plants there's a significant smell and VOC's released into the atmosphere 24/7. It's not a place you'd want to live next to. You'd much rather live near a nuke than a refinery.

When I lived in the middle of Houston I could smell the refineries 15 miles away in the mornings. (Deer Park and Pasadena to the E S/E)
 
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2 things can be true at once, gotta look at the full us supply chain

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/USA-REFINERY-PES/0H001QXH1993/index.html

IMG_5773.webp
 
LOL. Leave it to the EIA to wordsmith.

The "refinery" in Texas Storage Terminal is technically a refinery, but it follows a comparatively simple process that converts crude into low sulfur fuel for ships. which I guess is technically correct, but its unable to produce things like Gasoline or Jet fuel, etc.

The next line in their article says it all.

"However, the newest refinery with significant downstream unit capacity is Marathon's facility in Garyville, Louisiana. That facility came online in 1977 "
 
The closure of this refinery like every closure before it will bump oil prices up a bit nationwide, reducing the reliability of our fueling infrastructure further and the cost to replace this refinery vrs fix this refinery is likely 10x or more higher.
Unlikely as this refinery only serves California, AZ, Nevada. California refineries in general only serve CA, OR, NV, AZ and export finished product outside the country. Yes it's true. California refineries have sufficient capacity to export finished fuels.
 
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When it comes to refineries and chemical plants there's a significant smell and VOC's released into the atmosphere 24/7. It's not a place you'd want to live next to. You'd much rather live near a nuke than a refinery.

When I lived in the middle of Houston I could smell the refineries 15 miles away in the mornings. (Deer Park and Pasadena to the E S/E)
I lived a couple miles for 2 nuclear power stations when I was in Charlotte. The joke amongst our immediate neighbors was that if you ever hear the alarm, grab a lawn chair and a beer, and we can meet out on the street for our last toast together, because there is no way were getting out of here in time anyway. :ROFLMAO:
 
I kind of chuckle at the comments about refinery age... As examples...

Two refineries near me.

One started in 1939 as a 1000 bpd operation. By 1953 it was a 16,000 bpd operation. 1965 up to 26,000 bpd. It currently is a 105,000 bpd operation. This would be an 85 year old refinery by the age measure.

The other started operations in 1955 as a 25,000 bpd refinery. That one is now a 375,000 bpd operation. This would be a 69 year old facility by the "age" measure.

Yet from the original refinery to today, one has grown 105x the original capacity and the other 15x its original capacity.

I'm not going to state that neither refinery operates anything from their origins 69 or 85 years ago. But saying its a 69 or 85 year old refinery isn't exactly correct for the equipment currently being used either...
 
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4727642-phillips-66-is-expanding-past-its-refining-roots

Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX) is one of the largest refining companies in the world, with a market capitalization of more than $50 billion. The company is focused on investing in its business, in a volatile market, generating the required cash flow. As we'll see throughout this article, the company's continued investments in its business and cash flow generation make it a valuable investment.
 
Completely agree there have been some expansions. But expansions are always limited, and obviously the overall capacity is now lagging demand by about 2M barrels a day IIRC. Also, the older yet still expanded refineries are almost surely going to have a larger downtime % than a brand new refinery. Ultrasonic pipe thickness & vessel thickness checks caused several unplanned DT events when I was working at Citgo in Lemont. That doesn’t happen on new process equipment.

Expansions help, but new footprint is more beneficial especially when the site has room to grow. Hydrocarbons and nuclear are in our foreseeable future as the main driver of the world economy and improving lives around the globe. Periodic power sources and battery-powered cars guarantee we’re either keeping hydrocarbons & nukes, or else people are going without… pure & simple. Missed opportunities on these fronts will impact everyone negatively.
Corporations understand this - bureaucrats may/may not …
Some of the new construction investment has been in petrochemical plants such as plastics from natural gas …
 
It seems that P66 has poured money into another site in CA which is working in renewable fuels. Perhaps this refinery is just becoming too expensive to maintain.

That would be the Phillips 66 Rodeo refinery . I've driven by there many times. There was another refinery just down the road - the Pacific Refining Company in Hercules. That closed in 1995 but took a long time to clean it up. And Hercules was named after the Hercules Powder Company, which made explosives including dynamite and ammonia fertilizer. That area was a nasty little brownfield for a long time. But eventually they cleaned it up and there's a big shopping complex where the refinery used to be. I think Bio-Rad is now located where they used to make explosives.

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/CurSites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0902642

The biggest refinery in Northern California is Chevron Richmond and that place has been around for over a century. That's also their primary fuels and lubricants research center. That's where Chevron developed Techron, and before that Techroline.

Marathon is already converting its Martinez refinery into a renewable fuels processing facility. I've driven by it a few times.
 
When it comes to refineries and chemical plants there's a significant smell and VOC's released into the atmosphere 24/7. It's not a place you'd want to live next to. You'd much rather live near a nuke than a refinery.

When I lived in the middle of Houston I could smell the refineries 15 miles away in the mornings. (Deer Park and Pasadena to the E S/E)

I live less than that distance from the Chevron Richmond refinery. I've driven by there and it doesn't really have any kind of noticeable smell. It is over 100 years old but I'm sure the equipment has been updated many times over. I mean - it's so old that it was built before the breakup of Standard Oil.

The irony is that Richmond, California often isn't considered a desirable place to live, but the neighborhood (Point Richmond) next to the refinery is considered possibly the nicest part of the city.
 
I live less than that distance from the Chevron Richmond refinery. I've driven by there and it doesn't really have any kind of noticeable smell. It is over 100 years old but I'm sure the equipment has been updated many times over. I mean - it's so old that it was built before the breakup of Standard Oil.

The irony is that Richmond, California often isn't considered a desirable place to live, but the neighborhood (Point Richmond) next to the refinery is considered possibly the nicest part of the city.
Sounds a lot like Lake Jackson Texas. There used to be, I don't know if it exists to today, a Dow Chem plant right on the shore and the prevailing breeze would blow right into town. The homes and neighborhoods were very nice but man.

I spent some time performing air/water monitoring work around refineries/chem plants. I couldn't help but wonder about the LT exposure for the workers. I mean I get it in that people can make a decent living but man it really got me thinking about tradeoffs.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/...r-clusters-in-east-harris-county-and-houston/
 
Sounds a lot like Lake Jackson Texas. There used to be, I don't know if it exists to today, a Dow Chem plant right on the shore and the prevailing breeze would blow right into town. The homes and neighborhoods were very nice but man.

I spent some time performing air/water monitoring work around refineries/chem plants. I couldn't help but wonder about the LT exposure for the workers. I mean I get it in that people can make a decent living but man it really got me thinking about tradeoffs.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/...r-clusters-in-east-harris-county-and-houston/
Uncle worked at the Dow Freeport Complex for 38 years - he’s 78 and doing well … (lived in LJ) …
I need to go down there and visit surfside beach - been a good while
 
Sounds a lot like Lake Jackson Texas. There used to be, I don't know if it exists to today, a Dow Chem plant right on the shore and the prevailing breeze would blow right into town. The homes and neighborhoods were very nice but man.

I spent some time performing air/water monitoring work around refineries/chem plants. I couldn't help but wonder about the LT exposure for the workers. I mean I get it in that people can make a decent living but man it really got me thinking about tradeoffs.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/...r-clusters-in-east-harris-county-and-houston/
At this point there not putting anything dangerous in the air.

Its what's in the water that will kill you.
 
At this point there not putting anything dangerous in the air.

Its what's in the water that will kill you.
They're always putting things in the air, just not as much.

Water can be an issue if they're on a well. The really old sites are mostly likely to have a plume. I'll never forget the first time I pulled samples from monitoring wells at a refinery in E. Texas. The first pull of water would come up with a thin layer of crude oil.
 
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