Operations

The United States has the most complex and efficient refining industry in the world, but we also have less refining capacity than we used to. Where the issue of refining capacity is concerned, it’s important to understand what refining capacity is, why we’ve lost capacity in the United States and how policies can advance the competitiveness of our refineries in the global market.

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.

Beyond digitization (converting analog information to digital) and digitalization (the technology-driven shift to business processes) lies digital transformation.  

We enter the official 2020 hurricane season in June with a full appreciation that this year brings additional challenges as our nation continues a fight against a different yet deadly type of storm.

The operator of an 800-ton crane at ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge, Louisiana, polypropylene project construction site lowers a new 150-foot-tall reactor into place.

If you read the headlines in the news lately — “Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Plastics Are Predicted to Rise,” “New Texas petrochemical projects add millions of tons of greenhouse gas pollution, report finds” — you’d think emissions from the petrochemical industry were getting worse.

HOUSTON — The dog days of summer typically bring one or two hurricanes that lash the U.S. Gulf Coast. The punch of these storms, with their powerful winds and heavy rains, often has the potential to curb production at Gulf Coast refineries that together churn out nearly 50 percent of U.S. motor fuels and are crucial to our economy.

Rosemount, Minn. – The flame at the top of a 400-foot stack here at the Flint Hills Resources' Pine Bend refinery used to burn so brightly and so consistently that some say it was used to train pilots to land planes at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.

Every day, AFPM members make products that improve our lives and contribute to human progress — including fuels like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel that facilitate access to vital health services, and petrochemicals used as building blocks to create healthcare equipment, devices and technologies.