Limetree Bay Refinery (known also as Hovensa) is an

oil refinery An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...

located on the island of

Saint Croix Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorpo ...

in the

United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands,. Also called the ''American Virgin Islands'' and the ''U.S. Virgin Islands''. officially the Virgin Islands of the United States, are a group of Caribbean islands and an unincorporated and organized territory ...

. The refinery was a joint venture between

Hess Corporation Hess Corporation (formerly Amerada Hess Corporation) is an American global independent energy company involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. It was formed by the merger of Hess Oil and Chemical and Amerada Petrol ...

and

PDVSA Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA, ) (English: Petroleum of Venezuela) is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and production ...

. For most of its operating life as HOVENSA, it supplied heating oil and gasoline to the U.S. Gulf Coast and the eastern seaboard with the crude mainly sourced from

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. Previously it had sourced its crude feedstock from a number of other countries including

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

. At a capacity of about , in 2010 the refinery was among the 10 largest in the world. Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corporation started refinery construction in January 1966 having purchased the property from

Annie de Chabert Ansetta de Chabert (also known as Ansetta Muckle de Chabert, Ansetta de Chabert Clarke, Annie de Chabert) (1908–1976), was a businesswoman and civic activist from Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link ...

and, in October of the same year, the refinery started operating. In 1974, the capacity of refinery was expanded up to its peak at . Hovensa LLC, which took over the refinery operatorship, was established in 1998. In January 2011, Hovensa paid a $5.3 million penalty for Clean Air Act violations. The company closed the refinery in 2012, operating the property continued as a storage terminal only until that closed in 2015. A purchase proposal by Atlantic Basin Refining was vetoed by the USVI Senate, but in November 2015 a joint venture (of ArcLight Capital Partners and Freepoint Commodities) called Limetree Bay Terminals succeeded in purchasing the Refinery. On November 30, 2018 Limetree Bay announced it had closed on $1.25 billion dollars of financing for the refinery to partially reopen by the end of 2019. On June 23,2022 Government House in Christiansted issued a notice that Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation LLLP (PHRT) had acquired the assets of Hovensa (Limetree Bay Refinery on St. Croix) through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, Case 21-32351. They maintain that they will reopen it when it is safe to do so. The EPA shut down the facility in May 2021 after residents across the island reported feeling nauseous and ill from the release of gaseous fumes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/28/refinery-st-croix-epa-limetree/

References

External links

Multinational Monitor: Hess Oil Virgin Islands

Oil refineries in the United States Virgin Islands 1966 establishments in the United States Virgin Islands Industrial buildings completed in 1966 {{petroleum-stub