Tesoro Refineries
Anacortes Refinery

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Tesoro’s Anacortes refinery is located about 70 miles north of Seattle on the picturesque Puget Sound. With a total crude-oil capacity of 120,000 barrels per day, the refinery primarily supplies gasoline, jet fuel and diesel to markets in Washington and Oregon, and manufactures heavy fuel oils, liquefied petroleum gas and asphalt. It receives crude feedstock via pipeline from Canada and by tanker from Alaska and foreign sources.

The Anacortes refinery is a complex, high-conversion operation that ships gasoline, jet fuel and diesel through a third-party pipeline system that serves western Washington and Oregon. 

The facility delivers refined products, including CARB gasoline and components for it, through our marine terminal to ships and barges. It also sells liquefied petroleum gas, diesel and asphalt at the refinery. In addition, Tesoro operates refined products terminals at Anacortes, Port Angeles and Vancouver, Washington.

Health and Safety. Tesoro’s vigilant safety programs have contributed to continuing improvement in worker safety over the past several years. During the past three years, we reduced our recordable injury rate by more than 30 percent since Tesoro acquired the refinery. Tesoro conducts regular health and safety audits to provide compliance assurance and to focus on continuous improvement and implementation of industry best practices.

Consistent with such emphasis, the Anacortes refinery was recognized for 2006 and 2007 by the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA) with the Gold Award for outstanding safety performance. The award recognizes facilities that have reduced by 25 percent or more their total recordable injury rate with no workplace-related fatality of an employee or non-employee during the calendar year, as compared to the average total recordable incident rates for the three previous calendar years.

The refinery also won the NPRA’s Meritorious Safety Performance Award for achieving a total recordable injury rate of 0.8 or less with no workplace-related fatality of an employee or nonemployee during the calendar year. NPRA also awarded the Anacortes refinery with the Award for Safety Achievement: 1+ Years, in recognition of operating one or more years without an employee lost workday case involving days away from work and without a workplace-related fatality of an employee or non-employee during the evaluation period.

Environment. Environmental stewardship is a priority for Tesoro, especially because we have refineries in environmentally sensitive locations like Puget Sound. In line with our commitment to the environment, the company has developed projects aimed at reducing emissions and recycling beyond mere compliance.

In 2005, the Anacortes refinery constructed a state-of-the-art control system to reduce air emissions from the Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (FCCU). Known as a Flue Gas Scrubber, the system complies with a refinery emission standard that requires the reduction of particulate emissions. In fact, Tesoro had the option of building a much simpler and less costly control device, but elected to build the Flue Gas Scrubber, which also removes 4,000 tons of sulfur oxides per year.

In 2006, Tesoro completed the modification of a 25,000-barrel-per-day diesel desulfurizer unit that allows the refinery to manufacture ultra-low sulfur diesel as mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Through these and other environmental and profitability projects implemented by Tesoro, the refinery has reduced its annual air emissions by 60 percent since 2000. The Anacortes refinery was repeatedly honored by a Washington State regulatory agency for voluntarily producing a special gasoline blend that reduces air pollution from cars in the Seattle area during summer months.

Community. Anacortes employees are at the heart of the refinery and are active participants in the Skagit Valley community. The Anacortes refinery sponsors the annual March Point Run, which attracts about 300 participants for a 5K and 10K run, as well as a children’s half-mile run. The race is staffed by Tesoro employee volunteers who handle everything from registration to water stations to cooking the post-race meals.

In addition, through the unique Environmental Awareness Group Learning Environmental Solutions (EAGLES) program, Tesoro employee volunteers coordinate a variety of environmental projects, including roadside litter cleanup, Earth Day commemorations and ongoing communications with plant employees on environmental topics. Tesoro is also a long-time supporter of the Padilla Bay Foundation and the Adopt-A-Highway cleanup program. Many Tesoro employees are active volunteers in charitable and community support organizations throughout the local communities.