Refining
Western Refining owns and operates four refineries throughout the U.S., in western
Texas, northwestern New Mexico, and on the east coast of Virginia.
Our refineries are located in El Paso, Texas, in Bloomfield and near Gallup, New Mexico, and Yorktown, Virginia. Together, they currently have a combined crude oil throughput capacity of 235,000 barrels per day. All four refineries have truck racks or marketing terminals. The El Paso refinery delivers to a number of other markets by pipeline, and Yorktown has waterborne access and receives and delivers by barge and ship.
We employ over 700 skilled personnel in our refineries, producing the fuel that helps drive our nation’s economy. That fuel includes gasoline, military and commercial jet fuel, diesel, propane, and asphalt, among others. We produce it in a way that safeguards our air, water, land, people, and communities, because safety is a core value of Western Refining. In fact, safety is at the forefront of everything we do. We dedicate the time and energy of many highly-skilled people to ensure that our facilities meet and exceed federal and state standards for environmental performance. We’re concerned for the health and safety of the people of our communities because we are those people. We live and work here, and raise our families here, so our interest in a clean environment is a very personal commitment for all of us.
El Paso Refinery
The El Paso refinery is located approximately three miles east of downtown El Paso,
just south of Interstate 10. The refinery is located on approximately 555 acres.
The refinery was originally two facilities but the operations of the two plants were combined in 1993 and continue to operate as one entity today.
The "North" refinery was originally built by Standard Oil of California (later Chevron) in 1928 and was significantly modernized in 1957. It was subsequently modernized again in 1972 with the addition of a naphtha hydrotreater, catalytic reformer and sulfur plant.
The "South" refinery was originally built by the Texas Company (later Texaco) in 1931 and was significantly modernized in 1954. The facility was subsequently sold in 1986 to El Paso Refinery, L.P. (EPR) and was again significantly modernized and expanded to more than three times its previous operating capacity between 1986 and 1991. As a result of this modernization and expansion, the most significant of Western's major process units are essentially new.
The El Paso refinery has a crude oil throughput capacity of approximately 125,000 barrels per day, FCCU capacity of 29,500 barrels per day, alkylation capacity of 10,000 barrels per day and reforming capacity of 18,000 barrels per day.
The marketing terminal has a loading rack with an estimated maximum capacity of 36,000 barrels per day.
Crude oil is delivered to our El Paso refinery via a 450-mile crude oil pipeline owned and operated by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, (Kinder Morgan). The system handles both sweet (WTI) and sour (WTS) crude oil. The main trunkline into El Paso is used solely for the supply of crude oil to us, on a published tariff. We acquired the crude oil pipeline in 2003 from Chevron Corporation. In 2004, we sold the crude oil pipeline to Kinder Morgan, and we simultaneously entered into a 30-year crude oil transportation agreement with Kinder Morgan. The crude oil pipeline has access to the majority of the producing fields in the Permian Basin, which gives us access to a plentiful supply of WTI and WTS crude oil from fields with long reserve lives.
We also have access to blendstocks and refined products from the Gulf Coast through the Magellan South System pipeline that runs from the Gulf Coast to our refinery.
Products are delivered from Western's El Paso refinery by truck, rail, and pipeline. There are three product pipelines out of El Paso. Plains Pipeline operates a line to Belen and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a line to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Kinder Morgan operates a line from El Paso to Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. Western ships on all of these pipeline systems.
The refinery has storage capacity of approximately 4.3 million barrels.
Four Corners
The refinery near Gallup, New Mexico is located on 880 acres. The Bloomfield refinery is located on 285 acres near Farmington, New Mexico. These are the only active refineries in the Four Corners area. The combined crude oil throughput of the two refineries is approximately 40,000 barrels per day.
The Four Corners area serves as one source of raw material supply for both the Gallup and Bloomfield refineries. A locally produced, high-quality crude known as Four Corners Sweet is the primary feedstock, although the supply is supplemented with other feedstocks from outside the area.
Both refineries have crude distillation, hydrotreating for naphtha and distillate, reforming for high-octane gasoline production and fluid catalytic cracking units. In addition, the Gallup refinery has an isomerization unit to increase the octane of other gasoline streams that enhance high-octane gasoline production. The Bloomfield refinery has polymerization units to convert produced LPG's back into gasoline, while Gallup has an alkylation unit for that purpose.
The Gallup and Bloomfield refineries have similar product slates that include gasoline, diesel, propane, butane, and heavy fuel oils. Crude oil supply for our two New Mexico refineries comes primarily from the Four Corners area and is either collected by a pipeline network or delivered by our truck transports to pipeline injection points and/or refinery tankage.
The Four Corners region is the primary area for refined products from the Gallup and Bloomfield refineries. Western’s secondary markets include metropolitan Albuquerque (the largest market in New Mexico) and the northern Arizona region.
Yorktown
The Yorktown refinery is located on 570 acres along the York River in York County, Virginia with access to the Chesapeake Bay. This refinery has a crude oil throughput
capacity of 70,000 barrels of crude oil throughput per day.
Most of the Yorktown refinery’s feedstocks come from Canada, the North Sea, South America, and the Far East. Yorktown imports other feedstocks to supplement the processing units and blendstocks to optimize blending operations.
Yorktown has crude distillation, hydrotreating for naphtha and distillate, reforming for high-octane gasoline production, and fluid catalytic cracking units. Yorktown has vacuum distillation in the crude unit and a coker to further enhance the processing of thick crude components. The Yorktown refinery also has a polymerization unit to convert produced LPGs back into gasoline. Yorktown product slate includes gasoline, diesel, propane, butane, heavy fuel oils, and petroleum coke.
The Yorktown refinery’s strategic location on the York River, and its own deep-water port access, allows it to easily receive shipments from various regions of the world. All of the crude oil supplied to this refinery is delivered by barge directly to the dock.
The Yorktown refinery’s markets are very diverse and represent varying refining potential. Markets include the Yorktown region, Salisbury and Baltimore, Maryland, Norfolk, North and South Carolina, and the New York Harbor area.