Chevron completes refinery expansion project

Chevron USA Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron Corporation (Chevron), announced December 19 that its refinery in Pascagoula, Miss., has completed the expansion of its Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit, which will increase the refinery's capacity to manufacture gasoline by roughly 10 percent to about 5.5 million gallons per day. This expansion was completed during a large-scale, planned 75-day project shutdown in the fourth quarter.

"This project is another successful example of our commitment to investing in the reliability and scale of our operations to increase gasoline supplies to U.S. markets," said Mike Wirth, executive vice president of Global Downstream for Chevron. "In the last two years, Chevron has increased its gasoline manufacturing capacity in the United States by 6 percent, or 1 million gallons per day."

The Pascagoula Refinery is Chevron's largest wholly owned petroleum refinery, processing an average of 330,000 barrels of crude oil per day and producing a variety of transportation fuels and other refined products.

"With growing demand worldwide, Chevron's investment plans for 2007 continue to focus on increasing reliable supplies of clean-burning transportation fuels," Wirth said.

Chevron can process more than 2 million barrels per day of crude oil through its share of 19 wholly owned or joint-venture fuel refineries and one asphalt plant. The company markets motor fuels through its more than 25,000 retail outlets worldwide under the Chevron, Texaco or Caltex brands.