Hovensa

Last updated
Limetree Bay Refinery
(Formerly Hovensa)
HOVENSA refinery-06.jpg
Limetree Bay Refinery, Saint Croix,
United States Virgin Islands
Location map US Virgin Islands Saint Croix.png
Red pog.svg
Refinery location in St. Croix
City Christiansted
Coordinates 17°42′16″N64°45′19″W / 17.70444°N 64.75528°W / 17.70444; -64.75528
Refinery details
OperatorHovensa LLC
Owner(s) Hess Corporation, PDVSA
Commissioned1966 (1966)
Capacity646,000 bbl/d (102,700 m3/d)

Limetree Bay Refinery (known also as Hovensa, styled HOVENSA) is an oil refinery located on the island of Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. The refinery was a joint venture between Hess Corporation and PDVSA. For most of its operating life as Hovensa, it supplied heating oil and gasoline to the U.S. Gulf Coast and the eastern seaboard with the crude mainly sourced from Venezuela. Previously it had sourced its crude feedstock from a number of other countries including Libya. At a capacity of about 500,000 barrels per day (79,000 m3/d), in 2010 the refinery was among the 10 largest in the world. [1] [2] [3]

Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corporation started refinery construction in January 1966 having purchased the property from Annie de Chabert and, in October of the same year, the refinery started operating. [4] In 1974, the capacity of refinery was expanded up to its peak at 650,000 barrels per day (103,000 m3/d). Hovensa LLC, which took over the refinery operatorship, was established in 1998.[ citation needed ]

In January 2011, Hovensa paid a $5.3 million penalty for Clean Air Act violations. [5] The company closed the refinery in 2012, operating the property continued as a storage terminal only [6] until that closed in 2015. A purchase proposal by Atlantic Basin Refining was vetoed by the USVI Senate, but in November 2015 a joint venture (of ArcLight Capital Partners and Freepoint Commodities) called Limetree Bay Terminals succeeded in purchasing the Refinery. [7]

On November 30, 2018 Limetree Bay announced it had closed on $1.25 billion dollars of financing for the refinery to partially reopen by the end of 2019. [8]

Hovensa ultimately restarted the refinery in January 2021 after almost a decade offline. During a gas flare incident in May 2022, oil droplets emitted from a smokestack rained down on nearby houses, fouling rainwater collection systems. [9] Residents across the island reported feeling nauseous and ill from the release of fumes. [10] The plant shut down voluntarily and two days later, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an 60-day mandatory shutdown order. [9] Limetree Bay filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 12. [11]

Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation LLLP (PHRT) won the bankruptcy auction with a bid of $62 million in June 2022. [12] [13] The new owner says it will reopen it when it is safe to do so. [10] PHRT sued the EPA regarding which permits will be needed to reopen. [14]

For two weeks in August, 2022, a fired burned in the petroleum coke conveyor loading system, prompting an EPA inspection. The company agreed to sell off and remove from the site ammonia, liquefied petroleum gas, and an amine solution, which presented safety hazards. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Virgin Islands</span> Territory of the United States

The United States Virgin Islands, officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles.

Saint Croix is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hess Corporation</span> American global energy company

Hess Corporation is an American global independent energy company involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. It was formed by the merger of Hess Oil and Chemical and Amerada Petroleum in 1968. Leon Hess was CEO from the early 1960s through 1995, after which his son John B Hess succeeded him as chairman and CEO. The company has agreed to be acquired by rival oil company Chevron.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bayway Refinery</span> Oil refining facility in the Port of New York and New Jersey, United States

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanlow Oil Refinery</span> English oil refinery

Stanlow Refinery is an oil refinery owned by Essar Energy in Ellesmere Port, North West England. Until 2011 it was owned by Shell UK. The refinery is situated on the south bank of the Manchester Ship Canal, which is used to transport seaborne oil for refining and chemicals for Essar and Shell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wood River Refinery</span> Oil refinery in Roxana, Illinois

The Wood River Refinery is an oil refinery located in Roxana, Illinois, approximately 15 miles (24 km) north of St. Louis, Missouri, on the east side of the Mississippi River. The refinery is currently owned by Phillips 66 and Cenovus Energy and operated by the joint-venture company WRB Refining, LLC (WRB). WRB was formed on 1 July 2007, with Encana taking a 49% interest in Wood River and also Phillips 66's Borger refinery. Encana subsequently spun off oil sands producer Cenovus and ConocoPhillips spun off Phillips 66. In return for a 49% stake in the refinery, ConocoPhillips gained a joint interest in two Alberta oil sands (bitumen) heavy oil projects: Christina Lake (Alberta) and Foster Creek. ConocoPhillips’ interest was sold to Cenovus in May 2017, leaving Cenovus as the sole owner of the assets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodeo San Francisco Refinery</span> Oil refinery in California

The San Francisco Refinery is an oil refinery complex located in Rodeo, California and in Arroyo Grande, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area and Santa Maria Valley. These two locations, although more than 200 miles apart, are considered one location. They are directly connected by a 200-mile pipeline. The refinery is currently owned and operated by Phillips 66, a downstream company with midstream and chemical businesses spun off from ConocoPhillips in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delaware City Refinery</span>

The Delaware City Refinery, currently owned by Delaware City Refining Corporation, a subsidiary of PBF Energy, is an oil refinery in Delaware City, Delaware. When operational it has a total throughput capacity of 210,000 barrels per day (33,000 m3/d), and employs around 570 individuals.

The Whiting Refinery is an oil refinery located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan and the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal and operated by BP. The facility is primarily located in Whiting, Indiana, USA, though portions of the 1,400 acres (5.7 km2) complex span into the neighboring cities of Hammond and East Chicago.

The Ras Lanuf Refinery is a topping and reforming oil refinery in Ras Lanuf, Libya. It is part of a larger petrochemical complex also consisting of an ethylene plant, a polyethylene plant, plant utilities, and Ra's Lanuf Harbor. Until 9 March 2009, the complex was operated by the RASCO, a subsidiary of the National Oil Corporation. The current operator is the Libyan Emirates Oil Refining Company.

The Shell Scotford Upgrader is an oilsand upgrader, a facility which processes crude bitumen from oil sands into a wide range of synthetic crude oils. The upgrader is owned by Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP), a joint venture of Shell Canada Energy (60%), Marathon Oil Sands L.P. (20%) and Chevron Canada Limited (20%). The facility is located in the industrial development of Scotford, just to the northeast of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta in the Edmonton Capital Region.

Hess Oil and Chemical Corporation was a company founded in the early 1930s by Leon Hess of New Jersey to distribute heating oil. It expanded over the years to include refining and marketing of heating oil and other petroleum products through terminals and gasoline stations. In 1968, Hess Oil and Chemical Corporation merged with Amerada Petroleum Corporation into Amerada Hess Corporation. Since 2006, the merged company has been called Hess Corporation. Before the merger, Hess Oil and Chemical developed the Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corporation (HOVIC) Refinery on St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands, at the time the largest oil refinery in the world. After 1998 the refinery built by HOVIC operated under the name HOVENSA. It is a joint venture with PDVSA and is 50% owned by Hess Corporation. HOVENSA announced plans to close later on in the year on January 18, 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gulf Refinery, Milford Haven</span>

The Gulf Refinery at Milford Haven was an oil refinery situated on the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales. The refinery, originally owned and operated by Gulf Oil, was opened in August 1968 by Queen Elizabeth II. The plant, constructed at a cost of approximately £35 million, produced a range of petroleum products and occupied an area of 300 acres. It was initially designed to process 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The capacity was increased to 119,000 barrels (18,900 m3) a day of oil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greka Energy</span>

Greka Energy, legally HVI Cat Canyon Inc., is a privately held company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration principally in Santa Barbara County, California. Formed in 1999 after the acquisition and merger of several smaller firms, it is a subsidiary of Greka Integrated, Inc., a holding company headquartered in Santa Maria, California, and is wholly owned by Randeep Grewal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paraguaná Refinery Complex</span>

The Paraguaná Refinery Complex is a crude oil refinery complex in Venezuela. It is considered the world's second largest refinery complex, just after Jamnagar Refinery (India). The Paraguaná Refinery Complex was created by the fusion of Amuay Refinery, Bajo Grande Refinery and Cardón Refinery. The Paraguana Refinery Complex is still the largest refinery in the Western Hemisphere. As of 2012, it refined 955 thousand barrels per day (151,800 m3/d). The complex is located in the Paraguaná Peninsula in Falcón state and the western coast of Lake Maracaibo in the Zulia state. The complex accounts for 71% of the refining capacity of Venezuela and it belongs to the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

Caribbean Petroleum Corporation (CAPECO) is an oil company in Puerto Rico which owned an oil refinery in Bayamón having a capacity of 48 thousand barrels per day. In addition, it operated more than 200 service stations in Puerto Rico under the Gulf brand name. On October 23, 2009, an explosion took place in the refinery destroying 11 storage tanks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastham Oil Terminal</span>

Eastham Oil Terminal is situated close to the small town of Eastham on the Wirral Peninsula, beside the Manchester Ship Canal. It was commissioned in 1954 close to the Queen Elizabeth II Dock and is a storage and export facility for oil products refined at Stanlow Refinery, to which it is connected by pipeline. The site is currently operated by Nynas.

Petroleum naphtha is an intermediate hydrocarbon liquid stream derived from the refining of crude oil with CAS-no 64742-48-9. It is most usually desulfurized and then catalytically reformed, which rearranges or restructures the hydrocarbon molecules in the naphtha as well as breaking some of the molecules into smaller molecules to produce a high-octane component of gasoline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Port Harcourt Refining Company</span> Crude oil refinery of Nigeria

The Port Harcourt Refining Company,, is a Nigeria-based oil and gas company primarily specializing in the refining of crude oil into petroleum products. It is headquartered in Port Harcourt metropolitan area of Rivers State, southeastern Nigeria. The company is a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

References

  1. ↑ "Omar Shuts Down Hovensa". Downstream Today. AFX News Limited. October 15, 2008. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
  2. ↑ "Hovensa Refinery Reopens". Downstream Today. AFX News Limited. October 20, 2008. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
  3. ↑ Daker, Susan (June 30, 2009). "Hovensa Defers Capital Projects, Trims Workforce". Downstream Today. Dow Jones Newswires . Retrieved July 8, 2010.
  4. ↑ Collins, John (April 18, 2002). "Instability In Venezuela Being Watched Closely". Puerto Rico Herald. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  5. ↑ "2nd Largest Refinery To Pay $5.3 Million Penalty For Clean Air Act Violations" (Press release). Employee Medical Credentialing Services. January 27, 2011. Archived from the original on March 17, 2012. Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  6. ↑ Bronis, Jason (January 18, 2012). "Hovensa LLC to shut Virgin Islands oil refinery". Toledo Blade. Associated Press . Retrieved January 20, 2012.
  7. ↑ Bankes-Hughes, Lesley (November 6, 2018). "Americas: Former Hovensa St Croix Refinery Could Restart in Late 2019". bunkerspot.com. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
  8. ↑ "Limetree Bay Ventures Closes $1.25 Billion Financing to Restart Its Refinery in St. Croix". prnewswire.com. November 30, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
  9. 1 2 Fredreka Schouten. "A Caribbean island bet its future on petrochemicals. Then oil rained down on homes". CNN.
  10. 1 2 Joselow, Maxine (October 28, 2022). "EPA closed a refinery that rained oil. Now it's a 'ticking time bomb.'". The Washington Post . Retrieved April 23, 2023.
  11. ↑ EnergiesNet (2021-12-22). "St Croix refinery auction taps new winning bidder - EnergiesNet" . Retrieved 2023-11-01.
  12. 1 2 Laura Sanicola. "U.S. EPA approves hazardous chemicals removal from St. Croix refinery". Reuters .
  13. ↑ June 23, 2022 notice from Government House in Christiansted for U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, Case 21-32351.
  14. ↑ Janeka Simon (July 25, 2023), Court Rules EPA Overstepped Authority Regarding Port Hamilton Refinery Restart, The Virgin Islands Consortium
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.