Excellence Refined - 30 Years - Valero

The centerpiece of the “Refinery
of the Future” would be the
Heavy Oil Cracker, cutting edge
technology in the early 1980s.
state-of-the-art operation was no small task, and an
uncertain economy was no help. But Valero forged
ahead with a 33-month, $535 million construction plan
to build the “Refinery of the Future.” The plant’s new
heavy oil cracker, with the ability to convert high-sulfur
residual oil (resid) into premium products, would add
an important element to Valero’s plan to diversify. As
one Saber executive put it at the time: “Everything is
mammoth in this refinery.”
Valero set out to build a world-class plant that would
be unique in two respects – the production of 100
percent unleaded gasoline, and the processing of resid
rather than conventional sweet crude. By taking on
the most difficult-to-process feedstock – which sold
at a significant discount to light sweet crude – the
company could achieve higher refining margins than a
conventional refiner. At the time of construction, the
refinery’s heavy oil cracker was one of only three such
units in the world. Beyond its sparkling new assets,
Valero’s first refinery also gained prominence for
environmental excellence and energy efficiency – two
priorities still at the heart of the company’s operation.
Longtime Gulf Oil executive Martin Zanotti joined the
Valero team to help free the refinery from management
problems and operational snags. Zanotti ultimately was
named Executive Vice President of Valero Refining and
Marketing Company. Upon his retirement from Valero
in 1995, Zanotti reminisced about the challenges for
Valero in its early days. With the expertise of engineers
such as John Hohnholt, who went on to serve as Vice
President and General Manager of the Corpus Christi
Refinery and a senior corporate executive before his
death in 2004, the refinery was ahead of its time in
technology. But few at the plant had the expertise to
make the concept work. “We put the refinery on the
right road. And that took a lot of effort on everybody’s
part,” Zanotti said. “Valero turned out to be even more
of an exciting challenge than I had expected.”
With a state-of-the-art refinery as its flagship, Valero
continued to field criticism for its faith in the industry.
News articles and magazines portrayed a company
drowning in debt, with no way to escape. “Even if Valero
wanted to,” one article read, “it would have a difficult
A Company Is Born
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