Operations

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.

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.

Hurricane Harvey has slowed U.S. refinery output and disrupted the fuel supply chain. But thankfully, this disruption is not expected to be permanent.

The unprecedented disaster wrought by Hurricane Harvey has the safety of friends, family, colleagues and communities along the Gulf Coast weighing heavy on our minds and hearts.

Before the founding of the association now known as AFPM, our industry always pursued improvement in everything we do.