Oil refinery on the Nipomo Mesa will shutdown in January

In the mid-1950s Union Oil Company sent representatives to the Central Coast of California to find a site suitable for supporting a new facility. This facility would convert locally produced crude oil into the gasoline and diesel that would help to power the California economy for decades. A site on the Nipomo Mesa was selected and in 1955, the Santa Maria Refinery began its operation.

Over the course of the last 67 years, the refinery has partnered with its sister facility in Rodeo to provide customers with reliable, affordable energy. In addition, we have provided hundreds of head-of-household jobs to both company employees and contractors. Community outreach has also been a large piece of our core values as thousands of dollars are donated each year to many organizations in the Five Cities area.

As part of the evolution of our business, the Rodeo Refinery located in the San Francisco Bay will transform itself into one of the largest renewable fuels plants in the world. Upon completion of the project, we call “Rodeo Renewed” the refinery will produce 800 million gallons of renewable diesel, gasoline and jet fuel each year from feedstocks such as used cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oil.

These high-quality fuels are “drop-in” replacements for the fossil fuels currently on the market and provide added benefits such as lower carbon intensity and sulfur concentration. You can find our renewable diesel at your local 76 retail station displaying our green logo.

At Phillips 66, we are committed to providing energy and finding more efficient ways to meet the world’s energy demand and power human progress. As we drive to become a leading producer and supplier of renewable fuels in California, changes to our day-to-day operations are inevitable.

The regrettable part of this transformation is that the Santa Maria refinery, located at 2555 Willow Road in Nipomo, will cease to process crude oil in January of 2023. This tough news was first communicated to the workforce in August of 2020. The refinery currently employs 78 employees and 53 contractors. Those seeking an opportunity to stay with Phillips 66 will be offered a position at one of our other facilities, while others will retire or accept the company severance benefit.

The closure of the refinery will take several years. The first step will be obtaining a land use permit. We have already started working with the San Luis Obispo County Planning and Building Department so that we can move on to the next phase.

Step two is the demolition process. Demolition will be performed by a specialty contractor and should take just under a year to complete. Once the refinery structures have been removed, our remediation department will begin work on the third and final step, which is restoration of the land. The remediated property will provide a buyer with over 1,600 acres of land along the coast to develop for a future use. While Phillips 66 won’t be a part of the future use of the property, we hope that it continues to provide value to the local community.

We wish to express our sincerest thanks to the greater San Luis Obispo community and to the men and women who have helped operate this facility in a safe, responsible and environmentally sound manner. It has been a pleasure to be a part of the local economy and we wish everyone the best of luck as we depart.

Ron Gonzales is site manager of the Santa Maria Refinery.