Valero and the Air District Settlement

Valero, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (District), and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) reached an agreement on October 29, 2024 regarding the operation of the refinery’s hydrogen system.

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Valero is committed to environmental compliance and has worked closely with the District to make progress in reducing emissions containing trace levels of organic compounds from the hydrogen vent well before this settlement was reached.

 

Valero endeavored to comply with Federal rules associated with the hydrogen system; however, the District has much more stringent regulations.

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In 2022, the District’s own Health Risk Assessments (HRA) modeling indicated that the possibility of exposure to these emissions at levels that could potentially cause short-term effects could have occurred only two hours out of 43,710 hours, or 0.005% of the time. The HRA also found the risk of developing adverse health conditions from long-term exposures to be negligible, below the recognized risk threshold.

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Robust state-of-the-art air monitoring systems, with data readily accessible to the community, also show that the Benicia refinery has consistently had very low concentrations of ambient benzene at the fence line compared to other U.S. refineries, with results well below the EPA action level of 9 ug/m3 or 2.8 parts per billion (ppb).*

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This agreement demonstrates our commitment to remain one of California's lowest-emitting refiners while underscoring Valero’s unwavering pledge to safe and environmentally responsible operations.