An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha. Petrochemical feedstock like ethylene and propylene can also be produced directly by cracking crude oil without the need of using refined products of crude oil such as naphtha. The crude oil feedstock has typically been processed by an oil production plant. There is usually an oil depot at or near an oil refinery for the storage of incoming crude oil feedstock as well as bulk liquid products. In 2020, the total capacity of global refineries for crude oil was about 101.2 million barrels per day.
Koch Industries, Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas, and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacturing, refining, and distribution of petroleum, chemicals, energy, fiber, intermediates and polymers, minerals, fertilizer, pulp and paper, chemical technology equipment, cloud computing, finance, raw materials trading, and investments. Koch owns Flint Hills Resources, Georgia-Pacific, Guardian Industries, Infor, Invista, KBX, Koch Ag & Energy Solutions, Koch Engineered Solutions, Koch Investments Group, Koch Minerals & Trading, and Molex. The firm employs 122,000 people in 60 countries, with about half of its business in the United States.
Valero Energy Corporation is an American-based downstream petroleum company mostly involved in manufacturing and marketing transportation fuels, other petrochemical products, and power. It is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Throughout the United States and Canada, the company owns and operates 15 refineries, and one in Wales, with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3 million barrels (480,000 m3) per day, 11 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.2 billion US gallons (4,500,000 m3) per year, and a 50-megawatt wind farm. A Fortune 500 company, before the 2013 spinoff of CST Brands, Valero was one of the United States' largest retail operators with approximately 6,800 retail and branded wholesale outlets in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Mexico and Peru under the Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock, Beacon, and Texaco brands. It is the largest independent petroleum refiner and marketer in North America.
Tidewater Oil Company was a major petroleum refining company during the early 20th century. Tidewater was sold many times during its existence. Brands included Tydol, Flying A, and Veedol.
The Phillips 66 Company is an American multinational energy company headquartered in Westchase, Houston, Texas. Its name, dating back to 1927 as a trademark of the Phillips Petroleum Company, helped ground the newly reconfigured Phillips 66. The company today was formed ten years after Phillips merged with Conoco to form ConocoPhillips. The merged company spun off its refining, chemical, and retail assets into a new company bearing the Phillips name. It began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on May 1, 2012, under the ticker PSX.
Singapore Petroleum Company Limited, in short SPC, is a Singaporean multinational oil and gas company. It is involved in the exploration and production of petroleum, refining, trading and petroleum product distribution.
The Pine Bend Refinery is the largest oil refinery in Minnesota, located in the Twin Cities suburbs of Rosemount and Inver Grove Heights next to southern split of U.S. Highway 52 and Minnesota State Highway 55. The refinery is notable for being the largest in the United States to be located in a state without any oil wells. Overall, it ranked 14th in the country as of 2012 by production, with a nameplate capacity of 320,000 barrels (51,000 m3) per day. The facility is owned by Flint Hills Resources (FHR), a subsidiary of Koch Industries.
Bayway Refinery is a refining facility in the Port of New York and New Jersey, owned by Phillips 66. Located in Linden and Elizabeth, New Jersey, and bisected by Morses Creek, it is the northernmost refinery on the East Coast of the United States. The oil refinery converts crude oil into gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, propane and heating oil. As of 2007, the facility processed approximately 238,000 bbl/d (37,800 m3/d) of crude oil, producing 145,000 bbl/d (23,100 m3/d) of gasoline and 110,000 bbl/d (17,000 m3/d) of distillates. Its products are delivered to East Coast customers via pipeline transport, barges, railcars and tank trucks.
Petroleum production in Canada is a major industry which is important to the overall economy of North America. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world and is the world's fourth largest oil producer and fourth largest oil exporter. In 2019 it produced an average of 750,000 cubic metres per day (4.7 Mbbl/d) of crude oil and equivalent. Of that amount, 64% was upgraded from unconventional oil sands, and the remainder light crude oil, heavy crude oil and natural-gas condensate. Most of the Canadian petroleum production is exported, approximately 600,000 cubic metres per day (3.8 Mbbl/d) in 2019, with 98% of the exports going to the United States. Canada is by far the largest single source of oil imports to the United States, providing 43% of US crude oil imports in 2015.
The Canol Project was constructed during World War II to ensure a supply of oil for the defense of Alaska and the North American west coast. The project was completed in two years at great cost and was abandoned less than a year later.
The Cherry Point Refinery is an oil refinery near Bellingham, Washington, north of Seattle in the United States. Owned by BP, is the largest refinery in Washington state. It is located about seven miles (11 km) south of Blaine and eight miles (13 km) northwest of Ferndale, a few miles south of the Canada–US border, on the Strait of Georgia between Birch Bay and Lummi Bay.
Fawley Refinery is an oil refinery located at Fawley, Hampshire, England. The refinery is owned by Esso Petroleum Company Limited, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corporation, which acquired the site in 1925. Situated on Southampton Water, it was rebuilt and extended in 1951 and is now the largest oil refinery in the United Kingdom, and one of the most complex refineries in Europe. With a capacity of 270,000 barrels (43,000 m3) per day, Fawley provides 20 per cent of the UK's refinery capacity. Over 2,500 people are employed at the site.
Mericos "Max" Whittier (1867–1925) was a pioneer in the early California oil industry and was instrumental in the development of 3 of California's billion barrel oil fields: Kern River, Midway-Sunset, and South Belridge.
Petroleum has been a major industry in the United States since the 1859 Pennsylvania oil rush around Titusville, Pennsylvania. Commonly characterized as "Big Oil", the industry includes exploration, production, refining, transportation, and marketing of oil and natural gas products. The leading crude oil-producing areas in the United States in 2023 were Texas, followed by the offshore federal zone of the Gulf of Mexico, North Dakota and New Mexico.
The Chevron Richmond Refinery is a 2,900-acre (1,200 ha) petroleum refinery in Richmond, California, on San Francisco Bay. It is owned and operated by Chevron Corporation and employs more than 1,200 workers, making it the city's largest employer. The refinery processes approximately 240,000 barrels (38,000 m3) of crude oil a day in the manufacture of petroleum products and other chemicals. The refinery's primary products are motor gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel and lubricants.
The Marathon Martinez Renewable Fuels Facility is located in the San Francisco Bay Area in an unincorporated area known as Avon, East of Martinez, California. It refines biobased feedstocks such as animal fat, soybean oil and corn oil into renewable diesel. Previously owned by Tidewater Petroleum, Tosco, Valero Energy, Tesoro and Marathon Petroleum. The refinery is located on 850 acres, in 2016 had approximately 650 full-time employees, and had a crude oil capacity of 157,000 barrels per day. In 2015 it was the fourth-largest refinery in the state. The refinery had a Nelson complexity index of 16.1.
The Irving Oil Refinery is a Canadian oil refinery located in Saint John, New Brunswick. It is currently the largest oil refinery in Canada, capable of processing more than 320,000 barrels (51,000 m3) of crude oil per day. Over 80 per cent of the production is exported to the United States, accounting for 19 per cent of the country's gasoline imports and 75 per cent of Canada's gasoline exports to the US.
The Port of Paulsboro is located on the Delaware River and Mantua Creek in and around Paulsboro, in Gloucester County, New Jersey, approximately 78 miles (126 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. Traditionally one of the nation's busiest for marine transfer operations, notably for crude oil and petroleum products, such as jet fuel and asphalt, it is a port of entry with several facilities within a foreign trade zone.
The California oil and gas industry has been a major economic and cultural component of the US state of California for over a century. Oil production was a minor factor in the 19th century, with kerosene replacing whale oil and lubricants becoming essential to the machine age. Oil became a major California industry in the 20th century with the discovery on new fields around Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley, and the dramatic increase in demand for gasoline to fuel automobiles and trucks. In 1900 California pumped 4 million barrels (640,000 m3), nearly 5% of the national supply. Then came a series of major discoveries, and the state pumped 100 million bbl (16 million m3) in 1914, or 38% of the national supply. In 2012 California produced 197 million bbl (31 million m3) of crude oil, out of the total 2,375 million bbl (378 million m3) of oil produced in the US, representing 8.3% of national production. California drilling operations and oil production are concentrated primarily in Kern County, San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles basin.
The Refugio oil spill on May 19, 2015, contaminated one of the most biologically diverse areas of the West Coast of the United States with 142,800 U.S. gallons of crude oil. The corroded pipeline that caused the spill closed indefinitely, resulting in financial impacts to the county estimated as high as $74 million as it and a related pipeline remained out of service for three years. The cost of the cleanup was estimated by the company to be $96 million with overall expenses including expected legal claims and potential settlements to be around $257 million.
