WASHINGTON, D.C. – American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers President and CEO Chet Thompson today released the following statement addressing President-elect Biden's intention to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.
The Line 5 pipeline plays a critical role in ensuring the United States and Canada continue to have access to affordable fuels, propane and other refined products. Union, political and business leaders on both sides of the border are emphasizing the critical role of the Line 5 pipeline and calling for it to remain open until its replacement can be completed:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) has announced the winners of the 2020 Annual Safety Awards, part of an ongoing mission to enhance and recognize outstanding workplace safety.
It was 2010 and Jerry Wascom, ExxonMobil’s Americas refining director, was worried. Despite fuel and petrochemical manufacturers making significant improvements in the safety of their individual operations, across the industries there was an uptick in serious incidents. Workers were getting injured, surrounding communities were losing confidence, the reputation of the industries was being tarnished and regulators were becoming increasingly engaged. Wascom turned to his counterparts within the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association (AFPM), the industry trade group, and asked, “Are we doing enough to protect people?”
Refineries are not the story when it comes to retail gasoline prices. Raw materials (in this case crude oil) account for the biggest share of the final price consumers pay.
COVID-19 upended energy markets. Demand disappeared and producers scaled back. Now that economies are reopening, and the demand for goods and services is rebounding, the demand for energy all along the supply chain is increasing, driving up not only the cost of the feedstocks and fuels refineries and petrochemical manufacturers use, but also the cost of the energy used at every step of the supply chain.
If the Biden Administration is serious about helping consumers, it needs to adopt policies that promote U.S. energy production and refining. A good place to start would be right-sizing RFS mandates.
Limiting California’s access to the exact types of crude oil its facilities need will only increase prices for the state’s consumers and travelers. Drivers are already dealing with gasoline prices in excess of $5 per gallon and the highest fuel taxes of the 50 states. Confining energy producers and consumers to a smaller pool of crude oil will make a very sensitive price environment that much worse.
In 2015, after years of building a collection of over 600 pipeline real-world “test specimens” to be used for advanced pipeline safety research, the Pipeline Research Council International (PRCI) opened the Technology Development Center (TDC) in Houston, Texas.
