News Articles

Fred Kanter, FOR Director, and Tom Ronayne, FOR V.P., attended the 4th quarter CPChem and Phillips 66 Community Advisory Panel meeting in Old Ocean on Tuesday, November 12th. The meeting kicked off with Wayne McDowell and Willie Tempton, site managers for CPChem and Phillips 66 respectively, giving operations updates for their respective plants.  

CPChem has begun site preparation and pipeline relocation for their polyethylene expansion. Construction will ramp up beginning in January, peaking between 2,000 and 3,000 contractors, with completion and start-up scheduled for late 2016 or early 2017. No turnarounds are scheduled for next year.

Phillips 66 has had a good year for safety and environmental, but suffered several shutdowns due to power outages. Those outages, plus the cost of purchasing renewable fuels credits, have severely impacted refinery profitability for the year.  

Guest speakers were Reed Marton, Phillips 66 Safety Manager, and Aaron Doughty, Phillips 66 Midstream Project Manager. Reed discussed the extensive metrics that the refinery tracks for its health, safety, environmental, and process integrity programs. Aaron gave an overview of the proposed LPG export project at the Phillips 66 Freeport Terminal.  If approved, it will employ approximately 750 construction contractors beginning 3rd quarter 2014 and provide roughly 25 permanent jobs upon start up in 2016.

The next CAP meeting will be scheduled in February.     -Submitted by Tom Ronayne

Forty-some breakfast attendees were at the regular monthly first Saturday breakfast where mostly unimportant items were discussed. Breakfast is open to the public, living on or off the river.