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Torrance Refinery
Recent Developments
Pegasus Awards Results
Congratulations to our 2008-2009 Pegasus Awards
winners! We look forward to seeing you all at our awards ceremony on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center, Community Meeting Hall.
2008 Torrance Refinery Maintenance
During the next few months, maintenance work will generate increased activity in the refinery. This brochure is intended to answer your questions regarding all our maintenance activities.
2008 Open House
Read Torrance Refinery Manager Max Ocansey's message on the 2008 Open House
About the Torrance Refinery
Serving Customers in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada for over 70 years
The year was 1929. The city of Torrance had only been incorporated for nine years when an oil refinery sprouted from acres of bean fields.
Tracing its beginnings from a Scottish sea captain named John Barneson, the facility was built in response to the mariner's vision of fueling ships in the Los Angeles harbor with recently discovered crude oil from California's San Joaquin Valley. Pipelines soon followed and during the Great Depression the refinery, then known as the General Petroleum Corporation, processed up to 30,000 barrels of crude oil daily lending a much-needed boost to the local economy.
Today, the ExxonMobil Torrance Refinery processes more than five times this amount by using the most up-to-date technologies to produce the highest quality gasoline, aviation fuels and other materials to keep California and the West "on the move."
Harvesting California's Black Gold
The refinery's crude oil supply still comes primarily from the San Joaquin Valley. ExxonMobil's M-70 pipeline, one of the country's most advanced, carries some of the heaviest crude oil in the world from Central California to the refinery. More than 70 percent of each barrel is refined into high quality, specially formulated low emissions gasoline and sold in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada. Other products of the Torrance refining process include jet fuel, diesel fuel, liquefied petroleum gases (LPG), coke and sulfur.
Torrance Refinery at a Glance...
- Employs nearly 800 people
- Covers 750 acres
- Processes an average of 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day
- Produces 1.8 billion gallons of gasoline per year
- Produces nearly 10 percent of the gasoline sold in California
- Provides jet fuel to Los Angeles International Airport via pipeline
- Other products of the refining process include liquefied petroleum gases, diesel fuel, petroleum coke and sulfur
- Pays more than $13 million in taxes annually to the City of Torrance
- Pays more than $3 million in taxes annually to support area schools
- Contributes more than $3.5 million to the local economy by purchasing products and services from more than 3,300 local business
