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The Richmond Greens Say:
The Richmond Greens Say:
"We're for a Richmond without this Chevron"

Go to ChevronToxico.com

And get more info from:
http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/oil/richmond/

TEXACO POORMOUTHS OVER RICHMOND REFINERY by Tom Butt
August 05, 2003

According to a story posted yesterday in the East Bay Business Times, ChevronTexaco is considering closing or selling its Richmond refinery or converting it into a terminal. After quadrupling profits in a year, ChevronTexaco aims to cut $150 million in costs at the Richmond facility. Refinery Manager Whiteside bragged that he had already cut $20 million, $1.4 million of which (we note) was from refusing to pay Richmond’s Utility User tax increase while every other business and resident paid up.
The source says that “Whiteside said he intends to achieve the full $150 million in savings in just two years and retire early with a large bonus.”
Chevron poormouthing is a periodic phenomenon in Richmond and is usually timed to coincide with impending requests for concessions from local government agencies and regulators.
The entire story follows.
ChevronTexaco pressures refinery to boost profit or close
Alan Doyle
Despite carefully worded public statements implying the contrary, ChevronTexaco Corp. is considering closing its Richmond refinery - the largest in the East Bay - or converting it to a bulk terminal if profit doesn't improve dramatically over the next three years.
As part of its "Project Zeus" global reorganization, the San Ramon-based oil giant also is considering possible sale of the 225,000 barrel-per-day refinery, the East Bay's largest and California's third-largest, if profits don't increase by at least $150 million in that period.
That's what the refinery's new general manager, Jim Whiteside, has told the plant's 1,400 employees and its outside contractors, who already have seen 800 jobs vanish in the wake of Whiteside's rapid, far-reaching austerity moves.
Although such shutdown threats aren't uncommon when refiners are attempting to win concessions from employee unions or contractors, industry sources familiar with ChevronTexaco and Whiteside's reputation as a no-nonsense cost-cutter believe he isn't bluffing - and has the backing of David J. O'Reilly, ChevronTexaco's chairman and CEO.
"He's serious," said one industry source. ChevronTexaco may decide not to close or sell the refinery because of political repercussions and (environmental) cleanup costs, but it's on the table."
In carefully worded statements over the weekend, accompanying second-quarter earnings reports showing ChevronTexaco quadrupled profits from the same period in 2002, company spokesmen reiterated a corporate commitment to West Coast refineries and the California market, the biggest and one of the most lucrative in the nation. ChevronTexaco's West Coast refineries are in Richmond and El Segundo.
"That's not necessarily inconsistent," one industry source, who's talked with Whiteside, said Monday. "ChevronTexaco's not going to leave the California market. But if they can't make money refining in Richmond, they'll make the gas somewhere else and bring it in."
Whiteside already has cut some $20 million in costs in his first four months on the job, according to contractors who at least temporarily have lost work at the huge refinery. The contractors declined to be identified for fear of being cut off permanently.
Richmond refinery spokesman W.W. "Walt" Gill said shortly after Whiteside arrived in March that the new general manager would be too busy running the refinery to meet with a reporter.
Calls to the refinery Monday were referred to corporate headquarters in San Ramon for comment.
"ChevronTexaco is constantly looking for ways to increase the efficiency of its operations," said Stan Luckoski, a corporate spokesman. "However, we are not going to comment specifically on our business planning process or our future plans."
Part of that planning process, according to sources close to the company, is "Project Zeus," the code name given to the worldwide analysis of operations that's looking for savings in the wake of Chevron Corp.'s. $44 billion purchase of Texaco Inc. in 2001 to create the nation's second-largest integrated oil company.
Former General Manager Rick Zaleski, who had been in Richmond since 1999, was transferred to San Ramon this year to join the "Project Zeus" team. Zaleski took several key managers with him, according to sources familiar with Richmond refinery operations.
The cost-cutting analysis already has resulted in global reorganization from geographical to functional lines and the decision to sell up to $2 billion annually in underperforming assets during the next three years.
Closure of the 102-year-old Richmond refinery, or conversion to a facility storing California-specification fuel made at another refinery, could cost most of the plant's 1,400 employees their jobs. And it could cost as many or more skilled jobs created by the specialized contracting companies that work on routine maintenance and major construction projects inside the plant.
But such a move to a bulk terminal, which could be supplied by pipelines or tankers, would save ChevronTexaco as much as a nickel per gallon in costs, while avoiding California's and the Bay Area's expensive environmental restrictions, the toughest in the nation.
While the refinery's closing would have a minimal effect on ChevronTexaco's global operations, it would have a profound effect in Richmond. West Contra Costa's largest city has been a Chevron company town for the better part of a century. Richmond depends on ChevronTexaco's property tax payments for 17 percent of its general fund revenues.
ChevronTexaco has promised additional cuts to boost profits that have disappointed Wall Street since the merger. A merger-created accounting barrier expires in October, allowing ChevronTexaco to begin moving rapidly.
In comments accompanying the second-quarter earnings report on Aug. 1, O'Reilly said ChevronTexaco would focus on bringing U.S. and Asian refineries up to world-class status by 2005.
"We are transforming the downstream into a leaner, more efficient business," O'Reilly said in a statement.
Whiteside built a reputation as a cost-slasher in prior assignments in Southern California and New Jersey, reducing labor costs by 30 percent to 40 percent, according to industry sources.
The 24-year Chevron veteran took over in Richmond on March 1. Whiteside previously was assigned to Richmond during his rise through the corporate ranks.
At a July meeting with contractors to tell them he was canceling maintenance contracts until he could assess whether the work could be done more economically in-house, Whiteside said his assignment, with O'Reilly's knowledge, is to add $50 million to the bottom line in each of the next three years, according to contractors who attended that meeting and a second late in the month.
Whiteside said he intends to achieve the full $150 million in savings in just two years and retire early with a large bonus, according to those contractors.
Their accounts were corroborated by oil industry sources who said they've heard Whiteside make the same statements in other conversations outside the refinery.

Flares spew pollutants by the ton. Regulators once estimated Bay Area refineries vent 200 pounds of emissions daily; now, the figure is 22 tons

Published Friday August 22, 2003
Contra Costa Times

Another toxic pollution release
and rain of death over Richmond.
Another shelter in place in town.
Another Saturday night special
on August 9.

On August 9, another dying GI
in Bagdad, securing more profits
for big fat cats .
Perhaps from Richmond.
That GI will never see the peace.

A dammed fate in Bagdad;
A dammed fate in Richmond.
Dammed a thousand times over
Chevron-Toxico, and dammed
all city officials sharing their bed.

Juan Reardon
Richmond

The city of Richmond, in Contra Costa County, California, is home to the ChevronTexaco oil refinery, dozens of chemical plants, and chemical and petroleum based industries, many of which have had major industrial accidents over the past 30 years

The Chevron Refinery has been a major source of pollution, toxic releases, and accidents that have threatened the health and safety of workers and community members.

Richmond is largely a community of Color, a true
population rainbow with 35% African Americans,
27% Latino, 12% Asian, including a significant Laotian Community, 25% European Americans and 1% Native Americans. This multiethnic city has suffered the environmental racism of Chevron Texaco and other companies that continue to pollute our communities disproportionately afflicting the health and safety of Richmond.

These corporate polluters do not live in Richmond, they just dump their garbage here and continue to get tax perks from the Richmond City officials. Their
headquarter offices in San Francisco or San Ramon
do not suffer the health treats that their ongoing pollution bring to the city.

In addition to pollution Chevron Texaco dumps in Richmond its enormous and corrupting influence on City Council .

Most Richmond city council members are afraid to oppose Chevron Texaco. They know that in an electoral system rigged by money Chevron-Texaco can pump a lot of it against them at any time.

There is hardly anything Chevron Texaco wants from the city that it does not get. More pipes and spheres without environmental impact reports (EIR),
Special tax perks like the flat utility taxes that they got in 1994 and have maintained with the support of the Irma Anderson administration. (Every working family household in Richmond pays now 10% in taxes to the city except for $100 billion strong Chevron-Texaco which pays a flat rate which is in no way comparable to the percent we all pay)

We believe that Chevron-Texaco is so polluting and so corrupting that Richmond residents do not have a healthy and sound future with the refinery in existence.

It is time for the Chevron-Texaco 100 year old malfunctioning refinery to close down, clean up and move out!

The cleaned open space will be a great location for cleaner industry and so much needed residential housing.

Perhaps Richmond would become then a place where residents would be proud of its advance alternative energy sources industries, its pure air and the best gardens of the Bay Area.