Petrochemicals

AFPM welcomes the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) efforts in developing a Draft National Strategy to Prevent Plastic Pollution, but consistent with comments submitted to the Agency, we urge a revision of their strategy. To prevent plastic pollution, we encourage EPA to embrace policies that enable, not hinder, a circular economy for plastics where we use a range of technologies and strategies to recover post-consumer plastic and transform it back into usable materials.

Transportation safety is a shared responsibility and a range of stakeholders play a part, including rail shippers, rail workers, the railroads (or rail carriers) and well-prepared emergency responders. AFPM members, as shippers, control the tank cars and rail cars we own up to the point when we hand them over to the railroads.

Not only do the fuel and petrochemical industries make it possible, they’re also responsible for preserving and maintaining some of the best-known landmarks all over the world. Read on to join us for a ‘round the globe trip to some of the world’s most famous petrochemicals!

The U.S. petrochemical industry has a crucial and enduring role to play in meeting the needs of a growing world population while simultaneously fulfilling the imperative to produce petrochemicals in a sustainable and clean manner.

EPA’s existing Risk Management Plan (RMP) is doing what it was designed to do: drive continual safety improvements across workplaces to keep industry employees, contractors, facility neighbors and local environments safe. Any changes to a regulation as effective as the RMP need to be solidly evidence-based. Unfortunately, today’s proposal is filled with costly and misinformed changes, with little-to-no data to back them up. In fact, many of the proposed changes will adversely impact the safety and security missions of refining and petrochemical sites. AFPM looks forward to providing detailed comments on this proposal.

With the possibility that the EPA and policymakers could make updates to the Risk Management Plan (RMP) program, there are three things we encourage them to keep in mind: 1. RMP is working as intended and keeping people safe. 2. Any changes to RMP must be evidence-based and actionable. 3. Using RMP to zero in on hydrofluoric acid (HF) alkylation at refineries could have major impacts on U.S. fuel supplies.

To address freight rail concerns, leaders from LyondellBasell and the Surface Transportation Board (STB) held discussions and toured LyondellBasell’s facility in Morris, Illinois. LyondellBasell’s Morris Complex is unique in that it is served by more than one major rail carrier. Nearly 80 percent of U.S. refineries and petrochemical facilities operate in regions served by just one freight rail provider.