Date: August 31, 2009

To: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2007-0011

From: Kristin Parrish

Subject: NSPS Subpart J Review: Meeting Minutes for April 17, 2009, Meeting Between the U.S. EPA and Representatives of the Petroleum Refining Industry

Introduction

On April 17, 2009, representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and their contractor (RTI In ternational) participated in a stakeholder meeting with representatives of the American Petroleum Ins titute (API), National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA), Western Stat es Petroleum Association (WSPA ), and the petroleum refining industry. The names and affiliations of the part icipants are included in Attachment 1. Also included is a copy of the industry representatives’ request for th e meeting (Attachment 2). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss various is sues regarding the EPA’s reconsideration of NSPS subpart Ja.

The EPA representatives began by stating th at they had not discussed any of their thoughts for amendments to subpart Ja with their management, so no decisions have been made. Therefore, they stated, the ideas discussed in the meeting only reflected preliminary thoughts. They then shared a summary of those thoughts a nd engaged in a discussion with the industry representatives as described below.

Discussion

Flare Monitoring

The EPA representatives outlined several t houghts on monitoring for flares. The EPA representatives noted that for a series of cascaded flares, only the first flare would need to be monitored, and they asked whether all interconne cted flares are cascaded or whether some interconnected systems are designed so that part of one discharge could be routed to different flares based on pressure. The industry representatives responde d that many interconnected flare systems are cascaded. However, they also noted th at there are some systems designed so that the discharge can be released by any of several interc onnected flares. In these systems, each flare is usually designed to be able to ha ndle the entire capacity of a potenti al release. Some systems are designed to route to a specific fl are based on the pressure of the release, and other interconnected systems provide backup in case of a problem with one flare or an unusually large discharge.2

The EPA representatives asked if the terms “purge gas” and “sweep gas” are used consistently throughout the industry to define two different types of gas. They noted that if definitions of these types of gases are added to the rule, they would like to be consistent with industry-accepted terms. The industry repres entatives responded that the terms are used interchangeably and are not used co nsistently throughout the industry.

The EPA representatives noted they would like to accommodate flares with flare gas recovery, but they noted that not monitoring flow rate for all emergency flares seems contrary to the purpose of finding malfunctions. They noted that for a flare gas recovery system with a water seal, there is a possibility of monitoring the pressure and height of the water column and using any pressure exceedance as a trigger for root cause analysis . One question that would need to be answered in conjunction wi th this option is whether to defi ne an emergency-only flare as one that handles only startups, sh utdowns, and process upsets or one that handles just process upsets. The representative fr om the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) noted that the consent decrees define emergency-only flares as those that handle startups, shutdowns, and process upsets based on th e applicability of subpa rt J. The industry representatives agreed that if there is an alte rnative monitoring option for emergency-only flares, the rule should very clearly de fine an emergency-only flare.

The industry representatives noted that for flar e gas recovery systems, they would like the rule to spell out what to do wh en a compressor goes down. The OECA representative stated that the EPA is not likely to provide a maintenan ce exemption in the rule . Depending on how the flare management plan requirements are wri tten, maintenance downtime could be addressed though that mechanism. The OECA representative stated that they prefer to use their discretion

to allow maintenance downtime rather than writi ng blanket exemptions into rules, and he noted that they do take into account that not performing maintena nce can result in large upset emissions. He also noted that systems at large refineries can be designe d to operate while one piece of the system is down. The industry repr esentatives stated that if redundancy will be expected to avoid enforcement penalties, th en it should be made clear in the rule.

The EPA representatives noted that they are considering allowing the cylinder gas test for the relative accuracy test audit fo r flare sulfur monitors. The indus try representatives stated they would research those types of te sts further and try to provide th e EPA with more information if

needed.

As a result of this discussion, the industry representatives volunteered to send the EPA a

list of flares that should be ex empt from monitoring requirements.

Alternative Emission Limit for Flares

The industry representatives asked about a 500 pound per day (lb/day) SO 2 emission limit

for flares as an alternative to the 162 ppmv hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) limit. They noted that one refinery has three small flares with high sulfur concentration that do not usually emit emissions anywhere near 500 lb/day SO 2 . The EPA representatives stated that a 500 lb SO 2 /day limit is too high to be considered best demonstrated tec hnology (BDT) equivalent to the 3-hour 162 ppmv3

H 2 S standard. They noted that an equivalent ma ss standard could be set if the limit were much

lower than 500 lb SO 2

.

Process Heaters

The EPA representatives noted that they ar e considering providing a daily mass emission limit for process heaters to account for turndown conditions. Each day, the owner or operator could choose whether to comply with the 30-day average concentration-based limit or the daily mass limit. The 30-day average would then be calculated using the most recent 30 days for which the concentration-based (or heating va lue-based) limit is chosen. The industry representatives stated that they would check thei r emissions data to determine if this approach would fully account for turndown.

The EPA representatives also noted that as the rule is currently written, small heaters electing not to install a continuous emission monitoring system (CEMS) for nitrogen oxides (NO X ) do not have a way to demonstrate complian ce with the alternative daily mass emission limit. The industry representatives noted that instead of establishing one oxygen concentration operating limit, smaller process heaters possibly could do two biennial tests, one at higher capacity and one at lower capacity. They stated that they would th ink of other options to present

to the EPA.

Other Issues

The industry representatives stated that they are working to update their list of other issues they would like the EPA to reconsider for subpart Ja.Attachment 1 Participants in April 17, 2009, Meeting

Industry Representatives Charlie Bennett, Marathon Petroleum Vince D’Ippolito, HOVENSA Ron Chittim, API Chris Colman, HOVENSA Ken Comey, BP Chuck Ferrick, Exxon Mobil David Friedman, NPRA Ty Hastriter, ExxonMobil Jan Laughlin, ConocoPhillips Norman Morrow, Fresh Air Consulting Darren Stroud, Valero Energy Corp. John Wagner, API Dick Waibel, John Zink Bill Wehrum, Hunton & Williams

U.S. EPA Representatives Pat Foley

KC Hustvedt

Brenda Shine

RTI International (EPA contractor)

Jeff Coburn

Kristin ParrishAttachment 2 Request for April 17, 2009, Meeting

"Wehrum, William L." <wwehrum@hunton.com>

03/30/2009 05:44 PM To: Ken Hustvedt/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA

cc: Subject: Meeting Request

KC -- I'm writing to ask for a meeting on behal f of API/NPRA/WSPA to discuss the NSPS Ja reconsideration proposal. We plan to submit supplem ental comments later this week. We'd like to use the meeting to talk about these comments and other rele vant issues. We propose to meet the morning of Friday, April 17. Please let me know if this works for you and your team. If that is not convenient, we also could meet on the afternoon of Apr. 17 or on the morn ing of Tuesday, Apr. 14. As usual, we would plan to meet you in your offices in RTP.

Thanks for your help.

Bill Wehrum

Partner

wwehrum@hunton.com

Hunton & Williams LLP
1900 K Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20006 Phone: (202) 955-1637 Fax: (202) 778-7417

www.hunton.com