Hurricane Irma passed through Florida and into the Southeast over the weekend, and our thoughts and prayers are with the state and its residents as they begin to recover from this devastating storm.
A duo of strong storms that swept through the United States has temporarily disrupted domestic fuel markets, but effective responses by the private and public sectors have limited the fallout from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma for Americans who need fuel critical for commerce.
As Hurricane Lane, currently a Category 2 storm, makes its way towards Hawaii, our priority today is supporting Par Pacific Holdings, which is temporarily shutting down its 93,500 barrel per day refinery in Kapolei, on the island of Oahu, to ensure the safety of workers, and the community and environment surrounding the facility.
One of the most significant challenges facing the fuel and petrochemical industries is finding the next generation of craft professionals ranging from electricians to millwrights to everything in between.
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.
For more than 100 years, the women and men of our industries have answered the call to serve when our country needed them. Through war, economic shocks, and natural disasters, refiners and petrochemical manufacturers have helped build new industries, grow our economy and fuel progress.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United Steelworkers—on behalf of their 1.2 million active and retired members, and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, in a joint letter, have petitioned President Biden to fill the four empty seats on the Chemical Safety & Hazards Investigations Board (CSB).
AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson and API President and CEO Mike Sommers sent a letter to President Biden responding to recent letters the Administration sent to major U.S. fuel refiners suggesting that these companies, their workforces and facilities throughout the country aren’t doing their part to bring fuel to the market and lower energy costs for consumers.
We are surprised and disappointed by the President’s letter. Any suggestion that U.S. refiners are not doing our part to bring stability to the market is false. We would encourage the Administration to look inward to better understand the role their policies and hostile rhetoric have played in the current environment.
