Overhaul of oil refineries brings ray of hope to South Bay's cloudy future.

The South Bay's oil refineries are likely to create thousands of temporary jobs in the next three years as they are overhauled to meet federal and state clean-air requirements.

If any of the South Bay's six major refineries want to continue selling gasoline in California or elsewhere in the United States, they must upgrade their facilities to produce cleaner-burning fuels by 1996, said state and federal environmental officials.

Allen Jones, business manager for Pipefitters Local 250, which represents 4,700 members throughout L.A. County, estimated that between 5,000 and 7,000 temporary jobs will be created by the refineries during the peak of construction. He said 30 to 35 percent of those jobs will be for pipefitters, the profession that handles all the on-site design, layout and construction of piping systems at a refinery.

Atlantic Richfield Co. plans to hire about 2,000 temporary workers at the peak of construction at its Carson refinery, reported Arco spokeswoman Annie Reutinger. If the company gets its permits approved on time, that peak would come some time between 1995 and 1996, she said.

Once the overhaul is completed, 25 permanent jobs would be created at the refinery, Reutinger added. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer.

The Arco refinery, one of the largest refineries in the South Bay, produces 220,000 barrels of refined petroleum products a day, according to Reutinger.

But even the smaller refineries expect to hire a lot of temporary construction workers, reported local refinery officials.

Carolyn Green, a spokeswoman for the Ultramar Inc. refinery in Wilmington which produces 70,000 barrels of refined petroleum products a day, said that refinery is likely to hire 1,200 construction workers at the peak of construction. She said construction is expected to begin in late 1993 or early 1994.

Representatives from the Unocal Corp. and Texaco Inc. South Bay refineries said it was too early to tell the impact of their overhauls on the local labor market because they are both still in the early stages of the permitting process.

"We're definitely going to stay in the Southern California gas market," reassured Jeff Callender, a spokesman for Unocal, which has a refinery in Wilmington and bought a portion of Shell Oil Co.'s refinery in Carson. "But we're still looking at a number of options for retooling."

"Retooling" is the term used for overhauling refineries to produce cleaner-burning or reformulated gasoline.

By May, Unocal will have a better idea about the number of workers it will need to overhaul its Wilmington refinery, Callender said. That's when the refinery's draft environmental impact report is scheduled to be released.

Texaco spokesman Fred Schlicker said his company is two to three months away from making any decisions about retooling its local refinery.

The one refinery that will have few, if any, overhaul-related job opportunities is Mobil Corp.'s plant in Torrance, said Joel Mayness, the refinery manager.

"There will be no real impact on the job market here because we have already made a number of investments in the plant for clean fuels," he said.

Refinery officials pointed out that the process by which each refinery will meet the tougher environmental regulations could vary widely. Some refineries might opt to add new equipment instead of revamping older equipment, which would require fewer workers.

Still, the retooling of local refineries for reformulated gasoline is expected to generate thousands of jobs for Southland pipefitters, boilermakers, welders, carpenters, electricians and others.

The California Air Resources Board regulations for reformulated gasoline are considered far more stringent than those of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to environmental officials and refiners.

The state regulations are scheduled to go into effect in 1996, and the federal regulations are effective in 1995.

Mobil's Mayness said the difference between the cost of complying with state regulations translates to 10 to 15 cents more per gallon than the cost of complying with federal regulations.

According to a release by the California Air Resources Board, state regulations would result in a reduction of 150 percent more hydrocarbons than would result under federal regulations, 400 percent more nitrogen oxides and 15 percent more carbon monoxide.

State regulations, according to the release, would also "control sulfur and highly toxic, potentially cancer-causing compounds, which would not be reduced by the EPA (federal) rules."

Both state and federal clean-air regulations target the types of hydrocarbons in gasoline that are most responsible for forming ozone, a major component of urban smog.

Small refiners, those with production capacities of less than 50,000 barrels a day, have until 1998 to meet the state standards, two years longer than their larger competitors.

The California Air Resources Board and the EPA also have standards requiring the reformulation of diesel fuel sold in the state and nationwide, respectively, by 1993.

The standards would reduce current sulfur levels in diesel fuel sold in most parts of the state by as much as 80 percent, as well as cut certain types of hydrocarbons, according to releases from both agencies.

Major South Bay gasoline refineries
                                  Average daily
Owner        City                 barrel production
Arco         Carson                  220,000
Chevron      El Segundo              230,000
Mobil        Torrance                130,000
Texaco       Wilmington               35,000(*)
Unocal       Wilmington/Carson       104,000(**)
Ultramar     Wilmington               70,000
* Texaco was producing 50,000 barrels a day before its October
explosion.
** Unocal does not break out production for its two local
refineries because semi-refined products from Carson are sent
on to Wilmington.
Source: Refinery officials