Refineries on the Gulf Coast: The Complete Operator Map for Industrial Vendors

The Gulf Coast refining corridor runs from Corpus Christi, Texas, through Houston and Texas City, east through Beaumont and Port Arthur, and across the Louisiana border to Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, and the Mississippi River industrial corridor. It accounts for more than half of total US refining capacity. For vendors selling valves, rotating equipment, instrumentation, turnaround services, insulation, scaffolding, or specialty chemicals into these operations, these are the operators that sign the purchase orders.

Most lists of refineries rank them by capacity or ownership. Those lists serve analysts and investors. This one is organized differently: by operating corridor, by facility, and by the process units that drive maintenance and procurement spending. If you sell into refining operations, knowing that ExxonMobil operates the second largest refinery in the US matters less than knowing which units at that refinery are approaching a turnaround, and who at the facility controls vendor selection for your product category.

Why Gulf Coast refining

Gulf Coast refineries exist at this concentration for three reasons that compound. First, crude supply. Proximity to Permian Basin pipelines, Gulf of Mexico production, and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) provides feedstock optionality that no other US region matches. Second, export infrastructure. The Houston Ship Channel, Sabine-Neches Waterway, and Mississippi River provide deepwater access for refined product exports to Latin America and Europe. Third, complexity. Gulf Coast refineries run the most complex process configurations in the world, with Nelson Complexity Indexes routinely above 12, because the economics of converting heavy sour crude into high value products justify the capital investment in coking, hydrocracking, and alkylation capacity.

For vendors, complexity is the variable that matters most. A simple hydroskimming refinery with a crude unit and a reformer runs a few thousand valves and a handful of compressors. A 600,000 barrel per day complex refinery runs 25,000 to 45,000 isolation valves, 800 to 2,500 control valves, 1,500 to 4,500 pressure relief valves, and 1,200 to 2,500 pumps. Every additional process unit adds equipment populations that require maintenance, inspection, and periodic replacement. The Gulf Coast has the highest concentration of complex refineries in the world, and that concentration translates directly into vendor spend.

Houston and Texas City

The Houston and Texas City refining corridor is the densest concentration of refining capacity in the Western Hemisphere. From the Houston Ship Channel through Pasadena, Deer Park, and Texas City, this corridor operates refineries that collectively process more than 2 million barrels per day of crude oil.

ExxonMobil Baytown

ExxonMobil operates the Baytown Refinery and Chemical Complex, one of the largest integrated refining and petrochemical facilities in the United States. The refinery processes approximately 584,000 barrels per day of crude oil. The integrated complex includes a fuels refinery, olefins plant, and chemical manufacturing operations sharing common utilities and feedstock integration. The Baytown complex is ExxonMobil's flagship Gulf Coast asset and its largest US refinery.

ExxonMobil operates a corporate category management structure that governs procurement across all downstream facilities. At Baytown, this means the site reliability department controls equipment specification, but purchase orders for major spend categories flow through corporate master service agreements managed from Houston headquarters. The site plant manager holds budget authority for routine MRO, but enterprise level contracts, including turnaround services MSAs, are negotiated on a three year cycle by corporate category managers. For a vendor trying to enter the Baytown complex, the path runs through the site reliability engineer first: demonstrate that your product solves a documented reliability problem, build a performance track record on smaller scopes, and become visible to the corporate category manager before the next MSA rebid window. ExxonMobil's distinct reliability department means the reliability engineer is a dedicated role, not a part time function combined with maintenance, which makes the technical evaluation more rigorous but also more structured.

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Marathon Galveston Bay

Marathon Petroleum operates the Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, one of the largest refineries in the United States with a crude capacity of approximately 593,000 barrels per day. The refinery was formerly owned by BP and was acquired by Marathon in 2013. The facility includes crude distillation, fluid catalytic cracking, hydrocracking, coking, and alkylation units. Texas City also hosts Marathon's aromatics complex.

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Shell Deer Park

Shell operated the Deer Park Refinery for decades until selling its 50% interest to PEMEX in 2022. The refinery processes approximately 340,000 barrels per day. PEMEX now operates the facility under Deer Park Refining Limited Partnership. For vendors, the ownership transition created a procurement reset: legacy Shell MSAs expired, and the new operator is building its own vendor relationships and approved vendor lists. Vendors who were locked out under the Shell regime have a window to qualify.

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LyondellBasell Houston Refinery (closed)

LyondellBasell ceased crude oil processing at its Houston Refinery in February 2025, permanently shutting down the 268,000 barrel per day facility. The site is being converted to a recycled plastic pellet production operation, with the transition expected to complete after 2027. LyondellBasell's petrochemical operations adjacent to the former refinery continue to operate. For vendors, the Houston Refinery is no longer an active refining procurement target. However, the decommissioning, demolition, and site conversion work creates a distinct procurement pipeline for contractors specializing in those services. Vendors who previously supplied the refinery's operating units should redirect their attention to LyondellBasell's Channelview petrochemical complex, which continues to operate.

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Golden Triangle: Beaumont and Port Arthur

The Golden Triangle sits at the nexus of the Sabine-Neches Waterway. This corridor hosts three of the largest refineries in North America, and the concentration of heavy crude processing capacity here is unmatched anywhere in the world. Beaumont and Port Arthur refineries convert heavy sour crude from Canada, Mexico, and the Gulf of Mexico into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

Motiva Port Arthur

Motiva Enterprises operates the Port Arthur Refinery, the largest refinery in North America with a crude capacity of approximately 636,000 barrels per day. Motiva is wholly owned by Saudi Aramco. The refinery includes extensive coking, hydrocracking, and sulfur recovery capacity designed to process heavy sour crude grades. The scale of the Port Arthur refinery means that a single turnaround event at this facility represents one of the largest procurement events in the US refining industry.

At a refinery of this scale, turnaround planning follows a five year major cycle with planning kicking off 18 months before the outage window. The turnaround manager owns scope and budget. The turnaround planner builds the bill of materials. An 800 to 2,000 valve replacement scope per annual cycle at a facility this size means the isolation valve procurement alone represents a multimillion dollar spend event per turnaround. By six months before the outage, bid packages are already issued and vendor qualification is complete. Vendors who arrive after that point can bid against locked specifications but cannot influence what gets specified. The Motiva turnaround team operates with dedicated turnaround planners for each major unit complex, which means vendor conversations need to happen at the unit level, not just at the site level.

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ExxonMobil Beaumont

ExxonMobil operates the Beaumont Refinery with a crude capacity of approximately 369,000 barrels per day. The refinery includes a delayed coker, fluid catalytic cracking unit, and extensive hydrotreating capacity. Beaumont is connected to ExxonMobil's chemical operations in the region, sharing feedstock and utility infrastructure. The Beaumont refinery is also the site of ExxonMobil's polyethylene expansion, further integrating refining and chemical production.

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Valero Port Arthur

Valero Energy operates the Port Arthur Refinery with a crude capacity of approximately 395,000 barrels per day. The refinery is configured for heavy sour crude processing with coking, hydrocracking, and desulfurization capacity. Port Arthur is one of Valero's largest facilities and processes crude grades from Canada, Mexico, and domestic heavy oil production.

Valero operates the most decentralized procurement model among major US refiners. Each refinery has its own procurement team, preferred vendor lists, and contractor evaluation process. There is no single corporate approved vendor list that opens all facilities. The site general manager at each refinery holds budget authority and approves the contractor list. This means lower entry barriers at any given site but requires independent relationship building at each facility you want to serve. The Port Arthur site general manager is actively involved in vendor relationships, and their awareness of your company influences how the turnaround and maintenance teams evaluate you. For vendors, Valero's decentralization is an advantage: you can win Port Arthur without having to clear a corporate qualification gate, but you also cannot leverage a corporate MSA to access other Valero sites.

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TotalEnergies Port Arthur

TotalEnergies operates the Port Arthur Refinery (formerly Fina, then Atofina) with a crude capacity of approximately 225,000 barrels per day. The facility is integrated with TotalEnergies' petrochemical operations in the region. TotalEnergies' refining operations in the US are smaller than its European portfolio, which means the Port Arthur site operates with more autonomy from European headquarters than vendors might expect from a global major.

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Corpus Christi

The Corpus Christi refining corridor is anchored by three major facilities and benefits from proximity to Eagle Ford shale production and deepwater crude import terminals. Corpus Christi refineries process a mix of light sweet domestic crude and heavier imported grades.

Valero Corpus Christi

Valero operates two refineries in Corpus Christi: the East Plant and the West Plant, with a combined crude capacity of approximately 290,000 barrels per day. The East Plant and West Plant operate as integrated but semi independent units, each with its own process configuration and maintenance schedule. For vendors, this means separate turnaround calendars, separate reliability teams, and in some cases separate preferred vendor lists for the same operator at the same location.

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Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi

Flint Hills Resources (a Koch Industries subsidiary) operates the West Refinery in Corpus Christi with a crude capacity of approximately 300,000 barrels per day. Flint Hills is one of the largest privately held refining companies in the US. The private ownership means less public data on maintenance schedules and capital plans, but it also means procurement decisions move faster and with less committee oversight than at publicly traded competitors.

CITGO Corpus Christi

CITGO Petroleum operates the Corpus Christi Refinery with a crude capacity of approximately 165,000 barrels per day. CITGO is owned by PDV America, a subsidiary of Venezuela's PDVSA. The geopolitical complexity of CITGO's ownership structure has created procurement uncertainty at times, but the refinery continues to operate and maintain its process units on standard industry cycles.

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Lake Charles

The Lake Charles refining corridor anchors southwest Louisiana's industrial base. The Calcasieu Ship Channel provides deepwater access for crude imports and product exports, and the region benefits from proximity to Gulf of Mexico production and the Henry Hub natural gas pricing point.

Phillips 66 Lake Charles

Phillips 66 operates the Lake Charles Refinery with a crude capacity of approximately 260,000 barrels per day. The facility processes heavy sour crude and includes coking and hydrocracking capacity. Phillips 66 Lake Charles is also adjacent to the company's chemicals joint venture operations (CPChem), which draws feedstock from the refinery.

Phillips 66 operates a corporate procurement model with category management in Houston governing enterprise level spend categories across all refineries. The Lake Charles site procurement team handles day to day MRO purchasing within established spending thresholds, but turnaround services MSAs, major rotating equipment contracts, and DCS upgrade projects are managed at the corporate level. For a vendor selling into Lake Charles specifically, the entry path is the same as at other Tier 1 refiners: build credibility with the site reliability engineer, document performance over multiple work scopes, and ensure visibility to the corporate category manager before the MSA rebid window. The three year MSA rebid cycle means timing matters. If you enter a relationship in year two of a cycle, you have one year of performance data before the rebid. If you enter in year one, you have two years to build the track record.

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CITGO Lake Charles

CITGO operates the Lake Charles Refinery with a crude capacity of approximately 425,000 barrels per day, making it one of the largest refineries on the Gulf Coast. The facility includes crude distillation, vacuum distillation, FCC, coking, alkylation, and extensive desulfurization capacity. CITGO Lake Charles is the company's largest refinery and a significant consumer of turnaround and maintenance services.

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Baton Rouge and the Mississippi River corridor

The Mississippi River industrial corridor from Baton Rouge south through Norco, Chalmette, and Belle Chasse hosts a dense concentration of refining capacity. River access for crude supply and product distribution, combined with pipeline connectivity to Gulf Coast storage hubs, makes this corridor one of the most productive refining regions in the US.

ExxonMobil Baton Rouge

ExxonMobil operates the Baton Rouge Refinery, one of the largest refineries in the United States with a crude capacity of approximately 520,000 barrels per day. The refinery is integrated with ExxonMobil's Baton Rouge Chemical Plant, creating a massive industrial complex. The integrated nature means shared utilities, common shutdown windows, and coordinated turnaround scheduling between refining and chemical operations.

At an integrated complex of this scale, turnaround coordination between refining and chemical operations creates both complexity and opportunity for vendors. When ExxonMobil schedules a crude unit turnaround at Baton Rouge, the adjacent chemical plant units that depend on refinery feedstock may also shut down for maintenance. This coordination means the vendor procurement window is larger than the refinery turnaround alone. The bill of materials for a coordinated shutdown at a 520,000 barrel per day integrated complex can exceed $100 million in equipment, materials, and services. Vendors who understand the integration between refining and chemical operations, and who can demonstrate capability across both, have an advantage in securing larger scope packages.

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Marathon Garyville

Marathon Petroleum operates the Garyville Refinery in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, with a crude capacity of approximately 596,000 barrels per day. Garyville is Marathon's largest refinery and one of the largest in the United States. The facility was expanded significantly in 2009 and includes modern coking, hydrocracking, and desulfurization capacity.

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Shell Norco

Shell operates the Norco Refinery and Chemical Complex in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, with refining capacity of approximately 250,000 barrels per day. The Norco complex is one of Shell's integrated refining and chemicals sites, producing both refined products and petrochemical feedstocks. Shell's Norco operations share utilities and feedstock with the adjacent Shell Chemicals facility.

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PBF Energy Chalmette

PBF Energy operates the Chalmette Refinery in Chalmette, Louisiana, with a crude capacity of approximately 190,000 barrels per day. PBF acquired the facility from ExxonMobil in 2015. The refinery is configured for medium to heavy crude processing with FCC, coking, and hydrotreating capacity.

PBF Energy operates as a Tier 2 refiner, which creates a distinct procurement dynamic compared to the Tier 1 majors. At PBF Chalmette, the reliability function is often combined with inspection under a single manager, rather than operating as a distinct department. Site procurement carries more autonomy from corporate than at a Tier 1 refiner, with a thinner MSA governance layer. This means vendor qualification is less formal but also less structured. The advantage for vendors is a shorter decision chain: the reliability and inspection manager has more direct influence over vendor selection, and the plant manager is more actively involved in procurement decisions. The disadvantage is that there is no formal corporate MSA pathway that automatically qualifies a vendor across all PBF sites. Each facility requires independent qualification.

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What refineries buy

A map of refineries is useful. Knowing what they buy and when they buy it is what makes a map actionable for a vendor. Gulf Coast refineries share common procurement categories driven by the process units they operate.

• Isolation valves: 25,000 to 45,000 per refinery (200K to 600K BPD range). 60% are commodity gate globe check valves. 25% are severe service (hydrogen, HF acid, H2S, high temperature catalyst circuits). 15% are high cycle automated valves with actuator packages. Annual spend: $3 million to $8 million. Key OEMs: Velan, Cameron, Bonney Forge, Bray, Mogas, ValvTechnologies.
• Control valves: 800 to 2,500 per refinery. Fisher (Emerson) holds 50% to 70% market share at most Gulf Coast refineries. Masoneilan holds 15% to 25%. Valtek/Flowserve holds the balance. Annual spend: $1.5 million to $4 million.
• Pressure relief valves: 1,500 to 4,500 per refinery. OSHA/PSM compliance drives regular testing intervals. Crosby and Anderson Greenwood (both Emerson) dominate the installed base. Annual spend: $1.5 million to $5 million.
• Rotating equipment: 1,200 to 2,500 pumps, 30 to 80 compressors, 8 to 25 steam turbines per refinery. The largest single equipment spend category. Key OEMs: Flowserve, Sulzer, Elliott, MAN, Siemens Energy. Annual spend: $8 million to $25 million.
• Instrumentation: 8,000 to 20,000 field instruments, 50 to 200 analyzers. Rosemount (Emerson) holds 60% to 75% of the installed transmitter base at most Gulf Coast refineries. Annual spend: $3 million to $10 million.
• Piping, gaskets, and sealing: 25,000 to 60,000 flanges per refinery requiring gasket management. Turnaround driven demand. Flexitallic and Lamons dominate critical service. Annual spend: $4 million to $15 million (piping) plus $800K to $3 million (gaskets).
• Turnaround services: scaffolding, insulation removal and replacement, heat exchanger cleaning, catalyst handling, and specialty welding. A single major turnaround at a Gulf Coast refinery can consume $50 million to $200 million in services and materials over a 30 to 60 day window.

How refinery procurement works

Refinery procurement operates on three distinct tracks, and vendors who confuse them waste years calling the wrong person.

The first track is MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) procurement. At a typical Gulf Coast refinery, the reliability engineer identifies the need and writes the equipment specification, often driven by a failure analysis or a bad actor report. The maintenance manager approves the scope and confirms budget availability. Site procurement issues the purchase order against the approved vendor list. The entire cycle can move in days for an urgent replacement. The reliability engineer controls specification authority. If the reliability engineer specifies your product, procurement executes. If the reliability engineer does not know your product exists, no amount of procurement relationship building will generate a purchase order.

The second track is turnaround procurement. Turnaround managers operate with their own budgets and timelines. Planning kicks off 18 months before the outage window. The turnaround planner builds the bill of materials. By 12 months out, bid packages are being assembled. By 6 months out, vendor qualification is complete and specifications are locked. Gulf Coast refineries run on a five year major turnaround cycle per unit, but unit cycles are staggered: the crude unit, FCC, coker, and hydrotreaters each have their own cycle. At a large refinery, at least one unit turnaround is within 18 months of execution at any given time, creating a continuous procurement pipeline for vendors who maintain relationships with the turnaround team.

The third track is capital project procurement, which flows through engineering firms. Bechtel, Fluor, Worley, and Wood manage procurement for capital projects under EPC or EPCM contracts. The operator's project manager sets scope and approves the vendor list, but the engineering firm's procurement team executes purchases. Vendors targeting capital project work must qualify with both the operator and the engineering firm. If you are not in the EPC firm's vendor database before the RFQ is issued, you do not get the bid.

Overlaying all three tracks are the inspection driven replacement cycles. API 580/581 risk based inspection programs drive equipment replacement scope. API 570/574 piping and vessel inspections identify thinning, cracking, and corrosion that generates replacement work orders. The inspection manager's findings flow to the reliability engineer, who decides whether to replace in kind, upgrade metallurgy, or change vendors. For vendors selling corrosion resistant alloys, upgraded metallurgy, or extended life products, the inspection report is the triggering event. Vendors who understand how to read an API 574 finding and translate it into a product recommendation have a structural advantage over vendors who wait for the RFQ.

Unit specific turnaround cycles

Understanding when each process unit turns around tells a vendor exactly when the procurement window opens for their product category.

• Delayed coker: 4 to 6 year major turnaround cycle. High value items include the switch valve ($125K to $185K per valve) and coke drum inspections. Key vendors: DeltaValve (Curtiss-Wright), Z&J Technologies.
• Fluid catalytic cracker (FCC): 4 to 6 year turnaround cycle. The slide valve ($450K to $950K) and anti surge control valve ($150K to $400K) are the highest single item costs. Key vendors: DeltaValve, Tapco, Blakeborough, Mogas.
• Hydrotreater: 2 to 4 year cycle, driven by catalyst changeout. Catalyst charge cost: $3 million to $15 million per reactor. The hydrotreater cycle is the most frequent unit turnaround and generates the most consistent annual procurement volume.
• Hydrocracker: 4 to 6 year cycle. Similar to hydrotreater but with higher pressure ratings, meaning more expensive metallurgy and more stringent vendor qualification (NACE MR0175/MR0103 compliance).
• Catalytic reformer (CCR): 3 to 5 year cycle. UOP (Honeywell) and Axens licensors control catalyst specifications and some equipment vendor lists.
• Sulfur recovery unit (SRU): 3 to 5 year cycle. Molten sulfur pumps from Lewis Pumps (Weir Group) and burner systems from Zeeco or John Zink Hamworthy are recurring procurement items.
• Hydrogen plant (SMR): Reformer tube replacement on an 8 to 12 year cycle. Tubes from Schmidt + Clemens, Paralloy, or Manoir represent a multimillion dollar procurement event per hydrogen plant.

Finding the right contact at a refinery

The challenge for vendors is not identifying which companies operate refineries on the Gulf Coast. That list is above. The challenge is identifying the specific person at each refinery who controls vendor selection for your product category, and reaching that person at the right point in the procurement cycle.

At a typical Gulf Coast refinery, the reliability engineer controls vendor selection for rotating equipment and valves. The instrument and electrical manager controls vendor selection for analyzers, transmitters, and control systems. The turnaround manager controls contractor selection for outage services. The inspection manager drives replacement scope through API findings. None of these people are typically the contact who shows up in a LinkedIn search or a trade show badge scan.

At Tier 1 refiners like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron, the reliability department is a distinct function with dedicated staff. Vendor qualification is rigorous and structured. Corporate category management adds another layer. At Tier 2 refiners like PBF and HF Sinclair, the reliability function is often combined with inspection, the procurement chain is shorter, and the plant manager is more directly involved. At Tier 3 refiners like Calumet and CVR, reliability is combined with maintenance, procurement is fully site based with no corporate layer, and vendor selection is driven by personal relationships. The entry strategy is different at each tier, but the continuity point across all tiers is the reliability engineer. Even at operators where the role is combined with other functions, the person who tracks bad actors and specifies replacement equipment is the person who creates purchase orders.

ExecGraph maps 48,000 verified decision makers at 1,300 Gulf Coast operators, organized by department, seniority, and facility. For every refinery listed above, you can see the full org chart, identify the Senior Role contacts in maintenance, reliability, procurement, and operations, and trace the decision chain from the person who specs to the person who signs.

See how ExecGraph maps the decision chain at Gulf Coast refineries

Frequently asked questions

What are the major refineries on the Gulf Coast?

The major Gulf Coast refineries include Motiva Port Arthur (636,000 BPD), Marathon Galveston Bay (593,000 BPD), ExxonMobil Baton Rouge (520,000 BPD), ExxonMobil Baytown (584,000 BPD), Valero Port Arthur (395,000 BPD), CITGO Lake Charles (425,000 BPD), Flint Hills Corpus Christi (300,000 BPD), Valero Corpus Christi (290,000 BPD), Phillips 66 Lake Charles (260,000 BPD), and Shell Norco (250,000 BPD). These facilities collectively process more than half of total US refining capacity.

How many refineries are in Texas?

Texas hosts approximately 30 operating refineries, with the largest concentration along the Gulf Coast between Corpus Christi and Beaumont. The Houston and Texas City corridor alone operates more than 2 million barrels per day of crude processing capacity. The Golden Triangle corridor (Beaumont and Port Arthur) adds another 1.6 million barrels per day. These Texas Gulf Coast refineries represent the densest concentration of refining capacity in the world.

What is the largest refinery in the United States?

The Motiva Port Arthur Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, is the largest refinery in the United States and in North America, with a crude capacity of approximately 636,000 barrels per day. Motiva is wholly owned by Saudi Aramco. The refinery is configured for heavy sour crude processing and includes extensive coking, hydrocracking, and desulfurization capacity.

How do vendors sell into Gulf Coast refineries?

Vendor selection at Gulf Coast refineries is controlled by site level technical staff, primarily the reliability engineer for equipment and the turnaround manager for outage services. The reliability engineer writes equipment specifications, often driven by failure analysis or inspection findings. The turnaround planner builds the bill of materials 12 to 18 months before the outage. Vendors must identify the correct decision maker at the facility level and engage before specifications are locked. ExecGraph maps the full organizational structure at each refinery to identify these contacts.

When do Gulf Coast refineries schedule turnarounds?

Gulf Coast refineries operate on staggered turnaround cycles. Major unit turnarounds follow a 4 to 6 year cycle for crude units, FCC, cokers, and hydrocrackers, and a 2 to 4 year cycle for hydrotreaters. Planning begins 18 months before the outage window. Bid packages are assembled at 12 months. Specifications are locked at 6 months. At a large refinery, at least one unit is within 18 months of a turnaround at any given time, creating continuous procurement opportunities.