page_title: Chevron Richmond Refinery
section_title: Modernization
hierarchical_section_title: Chevron Richmond Refinery / History / Modernization
caption_attribution_description: Mass Mobilization at the Chevron Oil Refinery in Richmond, California, USA Saturday, August 15
context_page_description: The Chevron Richmond Refinery is a 2,900-acre petroleum refinery in Richmond, California, on San Francisco Bay. It is owned and operated by Chevron Corporation and employs more than 1,200 workers, making it the city's largest employer. The refinery processes approximately 240,000 barrels of crude oil a day in the manufacture of petroleum products and other chemicals. The refinery's primary products are motor gasoline, jet fuel, diesel fuel and lubricants.
context_section_description: Following the end of World War II, the refinery began a long-range modernization and expansion of its facilities to accommodate the new post-war consumer demands for petroleum products. The refinery constructed units that increased production of highly refined products for the postwar generation of higher-compression engines. In 1951, a 50,000-barrel (7,900 m³) residuum stripper was constructed to convert heavy residual fuel oil into lighter products. In 1959, the company made a major breakthrough when it developed the Isocracking process which uses catalysts to rearrange the existing molecules of heavy fuel oils to remove sulfur and convert low-value fuel oils into higher-yield products such as gasoline. The company also completed a new fluid catalytic cracking unit capable of processing 40,000 barrels (6,400 m³) daily of feed stock, further adding to the high-octane gasolines being demanded in rapidly increasing quantities by modern, high-compression automobile engines. In 1965, a breakthrough came when the Richmond refinery opened the world's largest Isomax hydrocracking complex. The unit converts heavy petroleum oils to lighter stocks for gasoline and other higher valued products. The 62,000-barrel (9,900 m³)-a-day unit increased the plant's gasoline output by 40%. A solvent de-asphalting plant and a hydrogen manufacturing plant were also constructed to support the Isomax and were the largest of their kind ever constructed.
  The post-war years were also marked by a dramatic increase in demand for petrochemicals to serve as the building blocks for hundreds of essential consumer products. In 1951, a new unit was constructed to manufacture paraxylene, a basic material used for making synthetic fibers, and was the first of its kind to produce the chemical from petroleum. The West Coast's first phenol plant was completed in 1954 for the production of lubricating oil and lubricating oil additive, resins and plastic, and plywood adhesives. A year later, another chemical plant for the manufacture of isophthalic was constructed, the first in the US. Isophthalic is a chemical intermediate used in plastics and surface coatings. In 1960, construction began on a $17 million complex for production of para- and orthoxylenes, important chemical intermediates, at the Richmond refinery. Another major project increased the capacity for production of alpha olefins, used extensively in the manufacture of "soft" detergents, lubricant additives, plastics and plasticizers. None of these chemical plants are still in operation today except for the alpha olefin plant, which produces an intermediate chemical for the production of Techron, Chevron's gasoline additive.
caption: A protest to modernization that would allow for refining of more polluting high sulphur crude
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