San Francisco refinery

Also known as: 

Rodeo and Santa Maria refineries

The San Francisco refinery was a medium sized high complexity refinery comprised of two integrated sites (Rodeo and Santa Maria) 200 miles apart in Calfornia in the US.  The Santa Maria site was located near the coast between San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria in Arroyo Grande.  The Rodeo site was located in the San Francisco Bay area.  The two sites were joined by a 200 mile pipeline that moved unfinished products from Santa Maria to Rodeo.

The refinery was 100% owned and operated by Phillips 66.

The refinery processed a mix of heavy sour and light sweet crude.  Crude was supplied both from pipelines connecting to onshore California production and imports by water.

in 2024 Phillips 66 permanently idled refining operations at both sites and converted the  Rodeo site into a 800 million ga/y renewable diesel plant processing waste and vegetable oils, using some of the existing hydrocracking and logistics capacity.  Existing crude pipelines were also be idled.

Refinery configuration

Complexity: 12.3

Major process units (at the time of shutdown):

Atmospheric distillation - 128 kbpd

Vacuum distillation - 93 kbpd

Coker - 51 kbpd - Two units:

DC-A (~23 kbpd) -  one train, located at Santa Maria site, 

DC-B (~25 kbpd) - two trains, 4 drums, located at Rodeo site. 

Hydrocracker - 69 kbpd - UOP Unicracking technology

Reformer - 34 kbpd - Semiregen

Naphtha hydrotreater - 28 kbpd

Distillate hydrotreater - 35 kbpd

C4 Isomerization - 4 kbpd

C5/C6 Isomerization - 10 kbpd

Hydrogen production - 22 MMscfd

Pet coke - 15 kbpd

Sulfur plant - 560 t/d

Renewable diesel hydrotreater - 8 kbpd - Unit 250

Land -  1100 acres at Rodeo. 1780 acres at Santa Maria

Employees - 650 (including contractors)

Location

Address: 

San Francisco refinery website

Refinery history

1896 - Rodeo built by Union Oil of Calfornia

1955 - Santa Maria built by Union Oil of Calfornia

1983 - Changed name to Unocal

1997 - Acquired by Tosco

2001 - Acquired by Phillips

2002 - Conoco and Phillips merge

2005 - Distillate hydrotreater added

2012 - ConocoPhillips separates businesses and Phillips 66 retains refineries

2020 - Phillips 66 announces plan to close both sites and convert Rodeo to renewable diesel production

2022 - Commissioned unit 250 renewable diesel hydrotreater (8 kbpd)

2024 - Conversion of the refinery to renewable diesel plant with 50 kbpd total capacity