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Wilmington Refinery - Shell

The California Petroleum Corporation opened an oil refinery in Wilmington, California in 1923. By 1998, Shell Oil had become a partial owner of the plant, and they took over full control of the facility in 2002. 98,500 barrels of crude oil are produced at the plant each day.

In March of 2007, an electrical power disruption shocked the refinery and temporarily cut off power to its refining equipment. The source of the disruption appeared to be a small animal that crawled into a power station on the premises, and managed to shut off the electrical supply. After 10 seconds with no electricity, a secondary source of power turned on to reinvigorate the plant. Shell workers attended to the problem and worked to bring the station back to full operating capacity. It took plant electricians until the following evening to bring the power source back to a fully functioning condition.

A power outage in 2006 led to a major controversy involving Shell's Wilmington plant. Following the outage, smoke was released at the refinery for several hours. Local activist groups such as the Coalition for a Safe Environment in Wilmington protested the toxic emissions, and in particular took offense that the refinery was not required to have a safety measure in place to prevent such pollution from being released. The groups blamed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and claimed they were too lenient with Shell and other oil manufacturers. A lawsuit was brought forth against the EPA, and the matter was put under review. In response, the EPA revised some of the regulations they have for refineries, including one that will require all industrial facilities to create a plan which will reduce or eliminate the level of hazardous emissions that occur following a power outage or equipment malfunction.

There are three refineries currently operating in Wilmington, and each one has had their individual problems and successes. One thing they have all had in common was the presence of a hazardous material called asbestos within their premises. The asbestos was contained within a variety of products such as insulation materials that were at one time very common in most every refinery. This was before researchers had discovered that asbestos was toxic, and could lead to the development of respiratory damage and asbestos cancer.

Minute particles of asbestos would often break off of the products used in a refinery and float in the air. Workers would then inhale the toxins without even knowing it had happened. The particles can become permanently lodged internally, and take several years to develop into a serious health risk. Any person who has been subjected to asbestos may be developing respiratory and cancerous diseases, and should make an appointment to be seen by their doctor at the next possible opportunity.

Last modified: December 09 2009.