oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial processes, industrial process Factory, plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refining, refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt, asphalt ...
on March Point near
Anacortes, Washington
Anacortes ( ) is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The name "Anacortes" is an adaptation of the name of Anne Curtis Bowman, who was the wife of early Fidalgo Island settler Amos Bowman.Skagit County. The refinery has a capacity of 145,000 barrels a day, making it the 52nd largest in the United States, in 2015, with facilities that include a delayed coker, fluid catalytic cracker, polymerization unit and alkylation units. Based on the secondary processing units in place, the facility likely follows a 3-2-1 crack spread. HF Sinclair’s refinery produces three grades of gasoline, fuel oil, diesel fuel, propane and butane. This plant is currently the only refinery in
Washington state
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washingto ...
unable to accommodate
tight oil
Tight oil (also known as shale oil, shale-hosted oil or light tight oil, abbreviated LTO) is light crude oil contained in unconventional petroleum-bearing formations of low permeability, often shale or tight sandstone.
Economic production from ...
via rail. The permitting process is currently underway for the proposed 60,000 b/d unloading capacity of the East Gate Rail Project.
History
The refinery was built by
Texaco
Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an independent company until i ...
in 1957. Its initial capacity of 45,000 barrels a day (bbl./d.) came online in 1958.
Before 1998 Shell Oil operated the neighboring Shell Anacortes Refinery. Shell and Texaco combined their refining and marketing operations, assets valued at $17 billion, in 1997. The joint business was known as Equilon. Antitrust litigation accepted the deal under the condition that Shell sell its current refinery, located directly north of (adjacent to) the newly-acquired Equilon refinery. The jointly owned former Texaco refinery was renamed the Puget Sound Refinery. Meanwhile Tesoro, an independent Texas-based midstream and downstream company, won bidding for the old Shell Anacortes Refinery at $237 million, with an additional payment of $60 million for net working capital. Tesoro became Andeavor in 2017, and with Marathon Petroleum's purchase of Andeavor in 2018, the one-time Shell Anacortes Refinery became the Marathon Anacortes Refinery.
When Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001, Shell bought out Texaco's share of Equilon, making Shell the sole owner of both Equilon and the Puget Sound Refinery.
Shell sold the Puget Sound Refinery to the HollyFrontier in 2021 for $350 million. As of 2022 it has a capacity of 149,000 barrels a day and serves customers in the Pacific Northwest, including British Columbia, as well as the major international air and sea ports in the region.