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Tuesday, March 8, 2011

California: Environmentalists Kill Jobs Project. Now: "We Never Meant to Kill The Project"

Complicated story, not worth going through the details, see the link.

Bottom line: CVX wanted to refurbish an old refinery in Richmond, California, a couple of years back. Environmentalists sued. CVX stopped plans. Now city leaders cry, "we never intended to kill the project.
Chevron's stalled plan to retrofit its Richmond refinery could be revived, more than a year after a bitter legal battle with environmentalists brought construction to a standstill.

City leaders are encouraging the oil company to apply for a new permit or an amended one this year to jump-start the project. The opponents wanted guarantees that pollution won't soar, but no one wanted the project to die, officials said.

"Cleaning up old refinery equipment, providing jobs and making the refinery more efficient and safer has been a common goal all along," Vice Mayor Tom Butt said. "There's really been no change in the ultimate objective."

The City Council last week unanimously approved a resolution encouraging Chevron to resubmit its plan, with Councilman Nat Bates absent. City Manager Bill Lindsay is expected to meet with Chevron to develop a permit process and timeline.
With EPA threats to tighten regulation of greenhouse gases emitted by refineries, and oil over $105, CVX may not be really, really interested in going back to the table any time soon.

Comment: why doesn't Richmond put up some wind turbines? We all know that if CVX / city come to agreement, the environmentalists will bring suit again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. This is not rocket science. This is California.

6 comments:

  1. embraceyourinnerhillbillyMarch 9, 2011 at 1:04 AM

    Richmond sits on the Northern Edge of SF Bay...all the Sierra Nevada, Shasta, San Joaquin watershed flows through the Delta and empties into the Bay past Richmond. An already decimated Salmon population in the Sacramento River watershed would be extinguished if they pollute this area. This is but one reason, locals want to see this done safely...the enviro's on the other hand, sometimes have unrealistic expectations and a rather shrill way of getting their demands across.

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  2. It will be interesting to see this play out.

    Based on what little I know, COP should let the city council and environmental folks sort it out, and once they come to an agreement, offer COP an offer signed by both city council and anyone else with a dog in the fight.

    At that point, if someone else sues to stop, let city council decide if it's worth pursuing. But COP might as well just move on to greener pastures while Richmond folks sort it out.

    Based on everything I'm reading, refineries are a losing proposition anyway with high-priced oil.

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  3. embraceyourhillbillyMarch 9, 2011 at 12:24 PM

    I live in Contra Costa County, same as Richmond...we have a few refineries here and i just paid 3.95 per gallon of unleaded.

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  4. Taxes are a big part of the cost of California gas, as well as cost of special formulations required in California, not required elsewhere.

    But it points out that gasoline is fungible; one can ship gasoline as easily as make it locally. That wasn't always the case.

    Thank you for commenting. Actually I think you might be paying less than what most/many are paying in California. I think some of California is well over $4.00 now, but I could be wrong.

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  5. I'm confused. COP is Conaco Phillips. Chevron is CVX. Did Chevron sell the refinery to Conaco?

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  6. Hi, Mike.

    You are correct. I'm the one who is confused. It should be CVX (Chevron).

    I've corrected the post above. Thank you for noticing the mistake. What surprises me is that you were the first to catch it and it was posted quite some time ago.

    Again, thank you for taking time to comment.

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