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Burnaby mayor says Chevron refinery is welcome to stay

While Chevron Canada puts out feelers for the sale of its marketing and refining assets, including the Burnaby refinery, the city’s mayor is hoping it can continue to stay operational under any new owner.
refinery
Mayor Derek Corrigan said the city is watching closely the sale of the Chevron Burnaby refinery.

While Chevron Canada puts out feelers for the sale of its marketing and refining assets, including the Burnaby refinery, the city’s mayor is hoping it can continue to stay operational under any new owner.

The topic of the refinery came up at Monday’s council meeting after council approved a one-year contract extension for Chevron to supply fuel related products to the city. 

Mayor Derek Corrigan said he doesn’t know what’s happening with the sale of the Burnaby refinery, but he’s watching the situation closely.

He also said he expects any prospective new owner to pay a visit to city hall to understand the relationship between the municipality and the refinery.

And what the new owners might find is a fairly receptive city.

Corrigan said the city has never attacked the Chevron refinery and has been a cooperative partner with the company.

“We’ve said, look, refined oil products are a necessity in our communities and having a refinery and being part of the supply chain has been an accepted role for Burnaby over the course of many years,” he told the NOW.

The city and mayor have had a well-documented fight against Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project. 

But Corrigan argued there is a difference between supporting Chevron’s refinery for oil products that can allow self-sufficiency and Kinder Morgan’s pipeline that he said makes the city a conduit for oil going offshore.

In June, the company confirmed it made a decision to solicit expressions of interest for the sale of refining and marketing assets.

Those assets include the Burnaby refinery, which is the last large-scale refinery operating on the West Coast, processing 55,000 barrels of oil per day.

Chevron is soliciting interested potential buyers for the Burnaby refinery, Chevron’s cardlock stations (where commercial vehicles fill up with fuel), Chevron gas stations and marine assets.

When asked for an update on the sale, Chevron spokesperson Adrien Byrne told the NOW the process is “ongoing.”

“I can say that no decision to divest of the refinery has been made, we are still engaged in that expression of interest process,” he said.

Though Burnaby’s mayor suggested some people living near the refinery would like it shut down, he sees it differently.

“We’re going to be left without any refining capacity here in B.C. and that scares me,” Corrigan said, adding the province would be put in a position to be dependent on off-shore refineries.

The only other B.C. refinery is in Prince George, owned by Husky, and it processes 12,000 barrels of oil per day.