Delaware City refinery owner PBF Energy Inc. completed its acquisition of the 155,000 barrel-per-day Torrance refinery, and related logistics assets, from ExxonMobil.
The agreement, which was delayed until Exxon could demonstrate the reliable operation of the refinery following repairs after an explosion last year.
With the acquisition, PBF increased its total capacity to approximately 900,000 barrels per day and becomes the fourth largest independent refiner in North America. The company has expanded since its first acquisition; a shuttered former Valero refinery in Delaware City.
It recently acquired a refinery from Exxon Mobil and the Venezuelan national oil company near New Orleans and has other refineries in Paulsboro, NJ and Toledo, Ohio.
The price for the assets was $537.5 million, plus working capital.
“We welcome Torrance’s professional workforce to the PBF family,” said PBF’s CEO Tom Nimbley. “Together, we are committed to the orderly transition of ownership and the safe, reliable, and environmentally responsible operation of the Torrance refinery and logistics assets.”
Nimbley continued, “We are excited to increase our geographic diversity with a complex refinery like Torrance in the dynamic West Coast fuels market. With this acquisition, PBF has increased our throughput capacity by more than 60 percent within the past year, adding significant earnings potential to PBF Energy and future growth opportunities for PBF Logistics.”
The Torrance refinery, located on 750 acres in southern California, is a high-conversion 155,000 barrel per day, delayed-coking refinery. Like Delaware City, it can handle both light and heavy grades of crude oil.
The facility offers flexible raw material sourcing and product distribution opportunities primarily to the California, Las Vegas and Phoenix area markets.
In addition to the refinery, the transaction includes a number of logistics assets including a sophisticated network of crude and products pipelines, product distribution terminals and refinery crude and product storage facilities.
Assets include a 171-mile crude gathering and transportation system which delivers San Joaquin Valley crude oil directly from the field to the refinery.
Included in the transaction are several pipelines that provide access to sources of crude oil including the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, as well as a direct pipeline supplying jet fuel to the Los Angeles airport. The refinery also has crude and product storage facilities with approximately 8.6 million barrels of shell capacity.
