June 3, 2012:

Hourly workers at independent western U.S. refiner Tesoro Corp's largest refinery are scheduled to vote on Wednesday on a contract proposal reached after three days of talks between the company, the United Steelworkers union (USW) and a federal mediator aimed at averting a strike, a union spokeswoman said. Members of USW local 5 have already authorized a strike by workers at Tesoro's 166,000 barrel per day (bpd) San Francisco Bay area refinery in Martinez, California, if a new contract is not ratified by its 170 members. USW spokeswoman Lynne Hancock on Sunday declined to disclose the terms of the proposal. A Tesoro spokeswoman said the company expects ratification.

"We have reached a tentative agreement which is subject to membership ratification," said Tesoro spokeswoman Jill Saletta. "We look forward to achieving ratification at Martinez, just as we have at all other locations." Workers at six of Tesoro's seven refineries are represented by the USW. Five of those refineries have approved contract proposals, some after strike authorization votes. The union has been battling Tesoro over worker safety issues and proposed changes in benefits. Tesoro has said in the event of a strike at the Martinez refinery, it would halt production temporarily to prepare temporary replacement workers who would then resume production.

By Reuters

June 3, 2012:

Hourly workers at independent western U.S. refiner Tesoro Corp's largest refinery are scheduled to vote on Wednesday on a contract proposal reached after three days of talks between the company, the United Steelworkers union (USW) and a federal mediator aimed at averting a strike, a union spokeswoman said. Members of USW local 5 have already authorized a strike by workers at Tesoro's 166,000 barrel per day (bpd) San Francisco Bay area refinery in Martinez, California, if a new contract is not ratified by its 170 members. USW spokeswoman Lynne Hancock on Sunday declined to disclose the terms of the proposal. A Tesoro spokeswoman said the company expects ratification.

"We have reached a tentative agreement which is subject to membership ratification," said Tesoro spokeswoman Jill Saletta. "We look forward to achieving ratification at Martinez, just as we have at all other locations." Workers at six of Tesoro's seven refineries are represented by the USW. Five of those refineries have approved contract proposals, some after strike authorization votes. The union has been battling Tesoro over worker safety issues and proposed changes in benefits. Tesoro has said in the event of a strike at the Martinez refinery, it would halt production temporarily to prepare temporary replacement workers who would then resume production.

By Reuters

May 3, 2012:

Marathon Petroleum Corp restarted a crude distillation unit at its 212,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky last week after it shut the unit to repair a failed pump, according to a filing with state regulators.  The number 3 unit was shut down after the pump failure resulted in missions. The spare pump was out of service for maintenance, the filing said. Marathon had reported planned work on a sulfur recovery unit at the refinery in early May and expected to bring the unit back online at the end of May.  The company declined to comment on its refinery operations.

By Reuters

June 2, 2012:

WYNNEWOOD — A decades-old Oklahoma refinery that employs 272 people is on the block once again. The Wynnewood refinery was acquired by Texas-based CVR Energy Inc. in December, but now that company is for sale after activist investor Carl Icahn acquired about 80 percent of the company’s stock in April. The 60-day sale window will run through late July. The refinery could be sold on its own if a buyer does not emerge for CVR over the next two months. Wells Fargo Securities analyst Roger Read said the Wynnewood refinery should draw interest, as part of CVR or on its own.

“The Mid-Continent of the U.S., where this unit is located, is the most profitable refining area in the world right now, if you measure it by crack spread. It’s a unit that certainly would have prospective buyers,” Read said. “If you were somewhere else where you don’t have a relatively low input or feedstock cost, you might have a different scenario. “But with all that’s going on in the shale plays, the logjam or bottlenecks there in Cushing, you’ve got a situation that for a significant period of time that is going to be favorable to refiners in the middle part of the country.”

The refinery has been a fixture in Wynnewood for more than 70 years. “At one time, it was the biggest employer around here,” Wynnewood City Clerk Beverly Badgley said. “It’s been part of our community forever.”

By Newsok.com

June 2, 2012:

HOUSTON  - Independent western U.S. refiner Tesoro Corp and United Steelworkers union (USW) Local 5 continued talks on Friday aimed at preventing a strike at the company's largest refinery, a Tesoro spokeswoman said. Meeting with a federal mediator for a third day, Tesoro and the USW hope to resolve disputes about worker safety and benefits that could otherwise lead to a strike at Tesoro's 166,000 barrel per day (bpd) San Francisco Bay-area refinery in Martinez, California. USW members at the Tesoro refinery have already authorized local union leaders to order a strike if the talks failed to yield an agreement.

By Reuters