Tag Archives: Valero Energy Corporation

Alon USA Energy, Bakersfield CA, Crude By Rail

Oil-by-rail project for shut California refinery near approval

Repost from Reuters
[Editor: Significant quote: “…proposals have faced lengthy delays for comprehensive environmental reviews, public input, and revisions.  Valero Energy Corp, the largest U.S. refiner, postponed its plans to send crude by rail to its San Francisco-area refinery because of such delays, and withdrew permit applications for a similar project at its Los Angeles plant….’I think Bakersfield is probably the best place to build a rail facility in California, because it’s not sitting in San Francisco or LA, and it has access to pipes going north and south. It just seems like it’s going to be a struggle to develop rail in other locations,’ Plains’ Chief Operating Officer Harry Pefanis told analysts in May.”  – RS]

Oil-by-rail project for shut California refinery near approval

Kristen Hays, August 15 2014

(Reuters) – The first new crude-by-rail project at a California refinery is likely to win approval next month after more than a year of scrutiny, the head of the Kern County planning division told Reuters, and it could help reopen the shuttered plant.

The facility at independent refiner Alon USA Energy Inc’s Bakersfield plant would increase crude offloading capacity to 140,000 barrels per day from its current 13,000 bpd and open up significant access to cheaper inland U.S. and Canadian crudes.

Alon’s Bakersfield plant is in Kern County, home to about 65 percent of all California oil production, where crude has been produced for more than a century.

Alon shut the 70,000 bpd Bakersfield refinery in late 2012 because its reliance on more expensive imports and lack of access to other crudes without significant rail rendered the plant unprofitable.

Other California refiners also struggle with profitability because of reliance on expensive imported crude and costly fuel manufacturing regulations in the biggest gasoline market in the country.

“We’re supportive of what Alon is doing with this refinery,” said Lorelei Oviatt, director of the county’s planning and community development department. “This refinery is not operating at full capacity. We would like to see this refinery operating at full capacity.”

Alon didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Alon project is among several proposed at California refineries, some of which face growing opposition in light of a spate of crude train crashes in the past year as the U.S. oil boom sent amounts of crude moving by train soaring.

The worst by far was in Quebec in July last year when a runaway crude train exploded in the town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people.

Several California refiners, largely isolated by the Rocky Mountains from the growing cheap bounty from oilfields in Texas, North Dakota and Canada, want to tap those sources via rail because no major pipelines carry crude from those areas into the Golden State, nor are any planned.

More than half of the 1.7 million barrels of crude processed by California refiners each day is imported.

But proposals have faced lengthy delays for comprehensive environmental reviews, public input, and revisions.

Valero Energy Corp, the largest U.S. refiner, postponed its plans to send crude by rail to its San Francisco-area refinery because of such delays, and withdrew permit applications for a similar project at its Los Angeles plant.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners operates the state’s most substantial oil-by-rail facility at a terminal in Richmond, which handles up to 72,000 bpd. Local planners last year approved, without an environmental review, a revised ethanol offloading permit to allow the terminal to handle crude. But opponents are suing to temporarily shut it down and force that kind of review.

Tesoro Corp faces similar growing opposition for a 360,000-bpd railport project in southwest Washington state that could ship crude to California refineries by tanker.

That could let California refiners – which includes Tesoro’s Los Angeles-area plant – replace more than 40 percent of more expensive imported oil with North American crudes if all of it were shipped to the state.

Alon is considering possibly leaving the Bakersfield refinery shut and running the facility as a rail and logistics terminal.

If the refinery remains shut, the rail operation would be similar to a separate 70,000-bpd oil-by-rail facility Plains All American plans to open in October and eventually expand to 140,000 bpd. That project was approved two years ago before it was acquired by Plains.

Alon bought the Bakersfield plant out of bankruptcy in 2010 from Flying J Inc, which had shut it in early 2009 shortly after seeking bankruptcy protection. Alon restarted the hydrocracker in the summer of 2011, but operational problems led to more shutdowns and startups.

David Hackett, president of Stillwater Associates, a refining consultancy in Irvine, California, said the refinery’s spotty operational history may better support a future as a rail hub.

“They haven’t run it as a refinery in a long time. I don’t think they’ll restart Bakersfield, and I don’t understand why they didn’t pull this off two years ago,” he said.

ESTABLISHED OIL HUB

Bakersfield sits in the center of the state’s oil production where the oil industry is long established. Plains executives have said its crude-friendly climate and existing infrastructure make the area more attractive for such projects.

“I think Bakersfield is probably the best place to build a rail facility in California, because it’s not sitting in San Francisco or LA, and it has access to pipes going north and south. It just seems like it’s going to be a struggle to develop rail in other locations,” Plains’ Chief Operating Officer Harry Pefanis told analysts in May.

Alon had hoped to have its Bakersfield rail project up and running by the end of 2013, but it, like others in the state, underwent a lengthy environmental review and public comment.

Oviatt said the Kern County planning department had considered all issues during that review, including safety and spill preparedness.

Now the project is slated to go before the county’s board of supervisors for a vote at a Sept. 9 public hearing. Oviatt, who is not one of the five members of the board, said she expected a final decision at that time.

The planning department has signed off on it, and Oviatt said the board tended to be supportive of business.

“I can’t say how the board would vote, but I do believe that given their business-friendly attitude, they’re going to take all of this into serious consideration.”

(Reporting by Kristen Hays in Houston; Editing by Terry Wade, Lisa Shumaker, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Phil Berlowitz)
Valero Energy Corporation

Valero report: expected income is up, conference call on July 30

Repost from Valero.InvestorRoom.com

Valero Energy Corporation Provides Second Quarter 2014 Interim Update

Jul 14, 2014

SAN ANTONIO, July 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO, “Valero”) announced today that the company expects to report income from continuing operations in the range of $1.10 to $1.25 per share for the second quarter of 2014.

Valero’s refining segment operating income is expected to be higher in the second quarter of 2014 versus the second quarter of 2013 primarily due to higher throughput volumes, as well as wider discounts on sour crude oil and certain types of North American light crude oil, which offset weaker year-over-year gasoline and distillate margins in most regions. In addition, Valero’s ethanol segment operating income is expected to be higher in the second quarter of 2014 versus the second quarter of 2013 mainly due to higher gross margins.

Valero also expects to report a loss from discontinued operations of $63 million, or $0.12 per share, related primarily to a noncash charge associated with recognizing an asset retirement obligation for the Aruba refinery.

As a reminder, Valero management will host a conference call on July 30, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. ET to discuss the quarterly earnings results, which will be released earlier that day, and provide an update on company operations.  Persons interested in listening to the presentation live via the internet may log on to Valero’s web site at www.valero.com.

About Valero
Valero Energy Corporation, through its subsidiaries, is an international manufacturer and marketer of transportation fuels, other petrochemical products and power. Valero subsidiaries employ approximately 10,000 people, and assets include 15 petroleum refineries with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 2.9 million barrels per day, 11 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.3 billion gallons per year, a 50-megawatt wind farm, and renewable diesel production from a joint venture. Through subsidiaries, Valero owns the general partner of Valero Energy Partners LP (NYSE: VLP), a midstream master limited partnership. Approximately 7,400 outlets carry the Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Shamrock and Beacon brands in the United States and the Caribbean; Ultramar in Canada; and Texaco in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Valero is a Fortune 500 company based in San Antonio. Please visit www.valero.com for more information.

Valero Contacts
Investors:
John Locke, Executive Director – Investor Relations, 210-345-3077
Karen Ngo, Manager – Investor Relations, 210-345-4574
Media:  Bill Day, Vice President – Media and Community Relations, 210-345-2928

To download our new investor relations mobile app, which offers access to SEC filings, press releases, stock quotes, and upcoming events, please visit Apple’s iTunes App Store for your iPhone and iPad or Google’s Play Store for your Android mobile device.

Safe-Harbor Statement
Statements contained in this release that state the company’s or management’s expectations or predictions of the future are forward-looking statements intended to be covered by the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  The words “believe,” “expect,” “should,” “estimates,” “intend,” and other similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.  It is important to note that actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements.  For more information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or forecasted, see Valero’s annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and on Valero’s website at www.valero.com.

SOURCE Valero Energy Corporation
DEIR, Oil Industry, Valero Crude By Rail, Valero Energy Corporation

Investor journal takes notice: Valero DEIR cites significant & unavoidable increase in emissions

Repost from Market News Call
[Editor: Market News call is “a daily market news monitor providing insight, briefs earnings and market news.”  I find it interesting and somewhat encouraging that investors are highly interested in Valero’s Crude By Rail Draft EIR.  – RS]

Just In: Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO)

By Michael Aragon • June 25, 2014

Valero Energy Corporation(NYSE:VLO)’s plan to unload as many as 70,000 barrels of oil a day from trains at its Benicia refinery will increase emissions across California in a “significant and unavoidable” way, a city report shows.

Valero has applied to build a rail-offloading rack at the plant northeast of San Francisco that would take oil from as many as 100 tanker cars a day. The San Antonio-based company delayed the project’s completion by a year to early 2015 as it awaits approval from the city.

“Project-related trains would generate locomotive emissions in the Bay Area Basin, the Sacramento Basin, and other locations in North America,” the city of Benicia said in an environmental assessment posted on its website today. “The city has no jurisdiction to impose any emission controls on the tanker car locomotives; therefore, there is no feasible mitigation available to reduce this significant impact to a less-than-significant level.”

Valero is proposing the rail spur as record volumes of oil are extracted from North American shale formations that the U.S. West Coast has little pipeline access to. California’s refiners are already bringing in the biggest-ever volumes of oil by rail as they seek to displace shrinking supplies of crude within the state and from Alaska.

Environmental Impacts, Oil Industry, Public Health, Public Safety, Tar sands crude, Valero Energy Corporation

Valero – A Critical Look at the Corporation’s many failures

Repost from Corporate Watch
[Editor: It may be helpful to set out some facts – complete with footnotes – concerning Valero Energy Corporation’s abysmal record on Biofuels, Environmental Racism, Air Pollution, Water Pollution, Safety and Wrongful Deaths, Anti-Competition, Iraq, Property Assessment Challenges, and CEO Pay.  Note that these facts pertain to the international corporation, not to our single Valero refinery in Benicia.  Nonetheless, Valero’s corporate culture is the locus for strategic planning, and individual refineries are beholden to support their superiors in Texas.
These facts fly in the face of my personal position: I find fault with Valero’s crude-by-rail proposal, but I also appreciate much about the way our local refinery conducts itself.  Valero’s local safety record, its generous civic and charitable contributions, and its contribution to Benicia’s tax base are not to be overlooked.  If our local Valero executives can stand up to their Texas superiors with sound arguments against crude by rail, maybe we can turn this thing around together.  I know, most will say “fat chance,” and they likely are right.  Anyway, take note of this history of corporate “crimes.”   – RS]

Valero Energy Corporation – A Corporate Profile by Corporate Watch UK

OVERVIEW

CORPORATE CRIMES

Valero has an appalling environmental record, being responsible for major air and water pollution from its refineries on numerous occasions.  It has funded climate change deniers, fiercely opposed carbon reduction legislation and is one of the companies most heavily invested in the toxic Canadian tar sands.  The company is also a major player in the biofuels business, owning 10 bio-ethanol plants across the US.  For details of Valero’s links to the tar sands industry see ‘Valero and the tar sands’ section.

In addition to environmental criticism of the company, Valero has been the centre of a host of other controversies, including safety issues, political influence, labour disputes, wrongful death lawsuits, excessive CEO pay and war profiteering.

Biofuels

Valero also produces ethanol from ten plants in the US by fermenting corn starch with yeast. Biofuels and bioenergy are associated with a host of problems, including deforestation, destroying indigenous communities, soil depletion, reducing biodiversity and land grabs, and are themselves a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Both corn and ethanol produced from corn are heavily subsidised in the US, and this, combined with financial incentives for biofuels, has had a dramatic impact on global grain prices and contributed to food shortages, famine and food riots.[21]

Valero is also investing in more advanced ‘second generation’ biofuels, such as those produced from cellulose. [22] However fundamental issues with fuel produced from biomass still apply. Even if land used to produce the biofuels (or agrofuels) does not compete directly with agricultural land, it can still have indirect effect on land prices, and indirect land use change can substantially increase overall carbon intensity of the fuel. Even so called ‘waste’ biomass is problematic as agricultural practices rarely waste biomass, it is usually used as animal feed or fertiliser, for example. Ultimately conversion from fossil fuels to agrofuels is not a sustainable solution to the worlds energy needs, it would require the transformation of vast tracks of land and could exacerbate climate change rather than mitigate against it.

Valero has invested in various companies aiming to commercialise emerging alternative biofuels such as “green” diesels from algae, from municipal-landfill solid waste and from animal-fat grease and used cooking oil.

Environmental Racism

In 1994, the state of Texas and the City of Corpus Christi were accused of environmental racism by two grassroots community groups in Texas’ Nueces County. People Against Contaminated Environments (“PACE”) and the American GI Forum of Texas (“AGIT”) filed a Title VI (Civil Rights Act of 1964) complaint alleging that, due to the existence of the Valero refinery, people of colour residents of Texas and Corpus Christi respectively were discriminated against by having their environmental protection and public health needs ignored.

According to the Political Economy Research Institute, 59% of people exposed to Valero’s air pollutants, including ammonia, sulfuric acid, and benzene, are minorities. [23]

Air Pollution

In March 2010 Valero Energy was Ranked 12th in the Political Economy Research Institute list of the top 100 air polluters in the United States (based on quantity and toxicity of emissions), having released 4.13 million pounds (1.88 million kilos) of toxic air pollutants in 2006.[24]

In its relatively brief history, Valero has received huge fines on numerous occasions for violations of air pollution legislation. These are some the most significant incidents:

April 2008 – In a settlement with The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), Valero agreed to pay a penalty of $905,796 and fund community projects worth $977,808. The settlement followed allegations of dozens of air pollution violations during 2005, 2006 and early 2007 at Valero’s refinery in Greenwich Township. The NJDEP cited Valero for exceeding overall emissions limits, violating stack-emission testing requirements, exceeding emission standards for pollutants during stack tests and various other violations.[25]

August 2007 – Valero agreed to a $4.25 million fine and additional expenditure of $147 million on pollution controls at its refineries in Port Arthur (TX), Memphis (TN), and Lima (Ohio). The settlement with EPA/DoJ required Valero to spend $1 million on support for a local health centre treating residents suffering respiratory illnesses who are not covered by health insurance. Days before the announcement, Valero was heavily criticised at a town hall gathering for two recent incidents: a release of toxic gas from its Port Arthur refinery on 28 July, which hospitalised some residents living near the plant, and a fire at the refinery on 8 August. [26]

June 2005 – Valero pledged to install $700 million in pollution controls and pay a $5.5 million penalty to settle a five-state/US EPA joint complaint following alleged violations of federal air-pollution law. The settlement was one of the largest the EPA reached since it started investigating the refining industry in 2000 due to widespread concerns over compliance and enforcement.[27]

April 2005 – In a settlement of alleged Clean Air Act violations between 2001 and 2004 at its Paulsboro (NJ) refinery, Valero was fined $793,000 by the New Jersey DEP. The company was ordered to pay a further $3.5 million to install emission controls, intended to reduce nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from its waste water treatment plant.[28]

2001 – Following repeated flaring of large volumes of sulfur dioxide between 1994 and 1998, Valero Refining was ordered to install a backup Sulfur Recovery Unit at their Corpus Christi refinery.[29]

2000 – Texas Natural Resources Commerce Commission forced Valero to pay a $174,455 penalty following alleged violations involving record keeping deficiencies and emissions exceedancies at its Texas City refinery.[30]

Water Pollution

A partial settlement between a dozen oil companies, including Valero Energy, and public water providers in 17 states was reached in December 2008. The litigation concerned groundwater contamination from the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), which had been used despite the fact that “No human health studies or long-term carcinogenicity studies on animals were conducted by the oil companies prior to adding MTBE to the nation’s gasoline supply”. The oil companies were required to Pay $422 million, and treat wells for MTBE over the next thirty years.[31]

In 2008 Valero Refining-Texas, L.P. agreed to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act following a spill of 3,400 barrels of oil into the Corpus Christi Ship Channel on June 1, 2006. Under the consent decree, Valero agreed to pay a $1.65 million civil penalty and perform a supplementary environmental project costing approximately $300,000.[32]

In January 2006 the New Jersey Department for Environment Protection announced an agreement made with Valero Refining Company that the company would preserve four properties totalling 615 acres as compensation to the public for ground water pollution at its oil refinery in Greenwich.[33]

Safety and Wrongful Deaths

In 2005 two workers suffocated while carrying out maintenance at Valero’s Delaware refinery, resulting in wrongful death lawsuits against the company in February 2006. According to evidence used in the lawsuits, the two men working for contractor Matrix Service Co were asphyxiated while retrieving a roll of duct tape that had fallen into a refinery reactor. Valero blamed the deaths on the victims, saying they hadn’t followed safety instructions. Others disputed this, asserting that a work permit gave no warning of suffocation hazards as required.

It was reported that Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Valero the previous year for failing to adequately oversee handling of work permits, and supervisors were unconcerned about discipline for violations. (Jeff Montgomery, “Valero staffing an issue in deaths,” Wilmington News Journal, 5/17/07). In addition, the company was accused of neglecting safety while rushing the refining system back into service to take advantage of high fuel prices.

One of the cases, brought by survivors of John A. Lattanzi, was settled in 2008 for an undisclosed amount. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board concluded that the deaths were in part due to “inadequate” warnings and barriers around an opening in the tank where the men died, and that managers had failed to give the workers adequate written notice of the suffocation hazard. There were also claims of destruction of evidence against Valero and disputes over expert testimony.[34]

According to the Federal Contractor Misconduct database, it was reported that the case brought by the family of John Ferguson was settled in 2010 for an undisclosed amount.[35]

A previous wrongful death claim associated with the same refinery was settled for $36 million in 2003. (Jeff Montgomery, “Suit in worker’s death: Valero put ‘profits over safety’,” Wilmington News Journal, 2/8/06). This followed a fatal explosion and fire in 2001, also at the same plant, which led to tough new laws on storage tanks and tens of millions of dollars in criminal and civil fines and penalties. Valero sold the plant in June 2010 to subsidiaries of PBF Energy Company LLC for $220 million.[36]

See here for a chronology of problems at the Delaware Refinery (Source: Wilmington News Journal, 11/7/05)

-March 2005: State regulators warn refinery managers about concerns over leaks, fires and risk of catastrophe. -January 2005: 12,500 pound propane leak. -September 2004: 20,000 and 9,000 pound butane leaks. -February 2004: 11,000 pound propylene/butane leak. -May 2003: Chemical reaction bursts a tank roof open, releasing 25,000 pounds of acid and 15,000 pounds of hydrocarbons, forcing employees to flee for their lives. (Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommended a $132,000 fine). -March 2002-August 2003: Excessive releases of carbon monoxide and other pollutants. (237,500 fine by Delaware). -July 17, 2001: Explosion and fire in a sulfuric acid tank kills one man, cripples several others and releases more than one million gallons of gasoline-laced acid. -April 2001: State regulators file criminal pollution charge accusing refinery managers of twice neglecting caustic chemical leaks that damaged the environment. -May 2000: Worker burned by pipe failure. -December 1997: Four workers injured when a tank explosion splashes them with a caustic chemical.

Valero has been involved in numerous other safety incidents and lawsuits, including:

-An accident involving the release of sulfur dioxide at Valero’s refinery in east Houston in 2006, sending 28 workers to hospital for treatment of respiratory complaints.[37]

-A fire at the Valero McKee refinery in Sunray, Texas, in February 2007. Three workers were seriously burned, and the entire refinery was shut down and evacuated. In July 2008, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) released a final investigation report that concluded the refinery did not have an effective programme to identify and address the risk of pipe failure due to freezing and the hazards posed by fire exposure to neighbouring equipment. [38]

-In 2008 the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed penalties totalling $101,750 for various violations including 13 alleged serious violations at Valero’s Port Arthur, Texas.[39]

Anti-Competition

Valero acquired various other companies in the refining business, growing from the fourteenth-largest US refiner at the outset of 2000 to the largest in 2005 with the $8billion acquisition of Premcor Inc. This raised concerns that the wave of mergers had reduced the number of refineries and companies in the wholesale market, resulting in increased market concentration, failure to build new capacity to relieve increased demand and therefore increased cost to the consumer.

The US Federal Trade Commission only agreed to Valero’s $6 billion merger with Ultramar Diamond Shamrock Corporation in 2001 after forcing Valero to shed Ultramar’s Golden Eagle Refinery, bulk gasoline supply contracts, and 70 Ultramar retail service stations in Northern California.[40]

Iraq

Valero was one of the first companies to receive oil from Iraq after the US invasion. It was amongst ten other companies to win contracts to buy Iraq’s new oil production of Basra Light crude, covering production from Mina Al-Bakr port in southern Iraq from August to December 2003.[41]

In 2004, Valero received a subpoena to give documents to the Iraq Food for Oil enquiry, investigating alleged improprieties in the programme.[42]

Property Assessment Challenges

Valero has a track record of aggressively pursuing property assessment lawsuits as a way of recovering money spent on property taxes. In 2006 Valero filed 150 lawsuits against 42 appraisal districts in 85 Texas courts.[43]

CEO Pay

Valero has come under sustained criticism for paying excessive CEO salaries. The total figure received by CEO’s is often (deliberately made) difficult to calculate, as it can include basic salaries, bonuses, stocks and options and various other forms of compensation and calculations of stock values.

According to Forbes magazine, William R Klesse, who has been CEO of Valero Energy for five years, received total compensation of $8.07 million in 2011 and a total five year compensation of $53.39 million.[44]

Figures quoted elsewhere claim that, according to the company’s proxy, William R Klesse received $15 million in 2007: salary, $1.5 million; bonus, $3.7 million; stock awards, $5.5 million; options, $3 million; deferred pay of $1.1 million, plus other pay of $117,110.[45]

The Institute of Policy Studies quote a figure for previous CEO William Greehey’s total compensation in 2005 as $95.2 million, adding that it would take the average energy company construction worker 4,279 years to equal what Greehey collected in a year.[46]

References

[1]www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-21/use-of-corn-for-fuel-in-u-s-is-increasing-prices-globally-fao-chief-says.html
[2]www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/1937195/valero-pumps-usd50m-wood-biofuel-plant
[3] http://data.rtknet.org/tox100/2010/index.php?search=yes&company1=25149&chemfac=chem&advbasic=bas&sortp=airrel
[4]www.peri.umass.edu/toxic_index/
[5]http://contractormisconduct.org/ass/contractors/94/cases/931/1226/valero-marketing-and-supply-greenwich-township_pr.pdf
[6]www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2007/August/07_enrd_626.html
[7]www.chron.com/news/article/Refiner-Valero-to-make-environmental-upgrades-1563672.php
[8]www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2005/05_0043.htm
[9]www.crocodyl.org/wiki/valero_energy
[10]www.valero.com/Financial%20Documents/Form%2010-K%202006.pdf
[11]www.businesswire.com/news/home/20080508005464/en/Water-Contamination-Suit-Results-Historic-Settlement
[12]http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/dc57b08b5acd42bc852573c90044a9c4/b4a9cb157a51ec7d85257464007354dd!OpenDocument
[13]www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2006/06_0001.htm
[14]www.jerebeasleyreport.com/2008/12/valero-settles-one-wrongful-death-lawsuit/
[15]http://contractormisconduct.org/index.cfm/1,73,222,html?CaseID=618
[16]http://blog.chron.com/newswatchenergy/2010/06/valero-sells-delaware-city-refinery/
[17]www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/2006_4204272/valero-leak-prompts-evacuation-sulfur-dioxide-gas.html
[18]www.csb.gov/investigations/detail.aspx?SID=12
[19]www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=15083
[20]www.ftc.gov/opa/2001/12/valero.shtm
[21]http://knowmore.org/wiki/index.php?title=To_the_Victors_Go_the_Spoils_of_War
[22]http://agonist.org/20060303/valero_subpoenaed_for_records_in_iraq_oil_for_food_program
[23]www.crocodyl.org/wiki/valero_energy
[24]www.forbes.com/lists/2011/12/ceo-compensation-11_William-R-Klesse_ZJO9.html
[25]http://blog.mysanantonio.com/clockingin/2008/03/valeros-ceo-earned-15-million-in-2007/
[26]http://economiajusta.org/files/pdf/ExecutiveExcess2006.pdf
[Editor – the footnotes are truncated at #26 in the source, and I am unable to locate the lost footnotes online. – RS]