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research, I discovered that all our refineries were designed around a traditional heavy barrel, like Brent crude from the North Sea or production from Venezuela or Mexico, and that shale oil simply required a different temperature setting.” After this breakthrough, the second building block for John came while he was working inside the Port of Brownsville.“ I was moving fuel into Mexico and realized the bulk of the refined product shortfall sits within 60 miles of Brownsville – then it dawned on me; if I could build a refinery that processes American shale oil into gasoline and diesel, I’ d have a market right on my doorstep.”
Although the vision for AFR had been born, the EPA process – administered in Texas by the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality( TCEQ) – proved a lot more challenging, John discloses:“ I met with the Governor, and he told me it would take 18 months to get a permit for the refinery. It took seven years! But it’ s a statutory process with a lot of back and forth, so it was through no fault of the TCEQ. Fast forward to today and we’ re in the detailed engineering stage, which we’ re proud to be progressing with strong partners.” These partners include Axens’ technology for the site’ s reformer and hydrotreaters, PCS for its crude tower design, and Fluor for overall project management and FEED work.“ We’ ve already started placing deposits on long-lead items, and manufacturing of our large-scale production units is now underway,” adds John.“ We expect those units to be on-site in 2028.
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