Limetree Bay Refinery (known also as Hovensa , styled HOVENSA ) is an oil refinery located on the island of Saint Croix in the United States Virgin Islands . The refinery was a joint venture between Hess Corporation and PDVSA . 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 . Previously it had sourced its crude feedstock from a number of other countries including Libya . At a capacity of about 500,000 barrels per day (79,000 m/d), in 2010 the refinery was among the 10 largest in the world.
8-604: Hess Oil Virgin Islands Corporation started refinery construction in January 1966 having purchased the property from Annie de Chabert and, in October of the same year, the refinery started operating. In 1974, the capacity of refinery was expanded up to its peak at 650,000 barrels per day (103,000 m/d). Hovensa LLC, which took over the refinery operatorship, was established in 1998. In January 2011, Hovensa paid
16-583: 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
24-648: Is safe to do so. PHRT sued the EPA regarding which permits will be needed to reopen. For two weeks in August, 2022, a fired burned in the petroleum coke conveyor loading system, prompting an EPA inspection. The company agreed to sell off and remove from the site ammonia, liquefied petroleum gas, and an amine solution, which presented safety hazards. Annie de Chabert Ansetta de Chabert (also known as Annie Muckle de Chabert , Annie de Chabert Clarke , Annie de Chabert , or simply Miss Annie ) (February 11, 1908–1976),
32-532: 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. Hovensa ultimately restarted the refinery in January 2021 after almost a decade offline. During a gas flare incident in May 2022, oil droplets emitted from a smokestack rained down on nearby houses, fouling rainwater collection systems. Residents across
40-580: The island reported feeling nauseous and ill from the release of fumes. The plant shut down voluntarily and two days later, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an 60-day mandatory shutdown order. Limetree Bay filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 12. Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation LLLP (PHRT) won the bankruptcy auction with a bid of $ 62 million in June 2022. The new owner says it will reopen it when it
48-628: Was a United States Virgin Islands businesswoman and civic activist. de Chabert sold a significant amount of her family land to Hess Oil and Chemical for an oil refinery in 1955, negotiating face-to-face with owner Leon Hess . With some of the money, she invested and brought the Sunny Isle Shopping Center to St. Croix . A member of the Democratic Party , she was made National Committee Woman from 1967 to 1972. She
56-561: Was also elected to and served on the Virgin Islands Board of Education as the chair from 1964 to 1970 and was active in several community organizations. She died of a stroke in 1976. She was married first to Ralph de Magne de Chabert Sr., a local civil servant, farmer, and real estate investor. After his death, she married Reverend Clarke, the vicar of St. John's Episcopal Church in Christiansted . After her death she
64-584: Was honoured by Resolution 778, March 1, 1976, of the Virgin Islands legislature, which commemorated her "lifetime of human warmth, noble pursuits and good works throughout the Virgin Islands community". In 2005, she was one of 13 women inducted into the Virgin Islands Women's Hall of Fame. This United States Virgin Islands biographical article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This biographical article about
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