In 1891, the
Union Petroleum Company leased 17
acres in
Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, from the
Reading Company. The first plant, constructed primarily of wood, burned down in 1912. Union Petroleum Company was bought out by
Sinclair Oil Corporation, which purchased the original lease and an additional 242 acres of land adjacent to
Trainer, Pennsylvania. On March 17, 1925, Sinclair Oil opened its new $7 million state-of-the-art facility with a projected gasoline production of 6,000 gallons per day (approximately 22,712 liters). In the late 1940s, Sinclair went through a number of expansions, notably the installation of a
fluid catalytic cracking unit. In 1955, the company installed two new crude stills. According to the 1955 Sinclair Oil Annual Report, these expansions gave the plant an estimated crude processing capacity of 120,000
BPD (Barrels per Day).
Atlantic-Richfield Company acquired the company in 1969 and, shortly thereafter, sold the refinery to
BP, which then transferred the formal ownership to
SOHIO. These transactions were a part of deals for the
Alaskan Pipeline. The refinery then underwent a modernization expansion at an estimated cost of $200 million. BP took total ownership of the refinery after absorbing SOHIO in 1987. In 1996, BP sold several refining assets, including the refinery at Marcus Hook, to
Tosco Corporation, which shuttered the refinery after negotiations broke down with union employees. In 1997, Tosco reopened the facility as the Trainer Refinery, operating officially as part of Bayway Refining Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tosco. In 2001, the refinery became part of
Phillips Petroleum Company after its acquisition of Tosco. In 2002,
Conoco merged with Phillips to become
ConocoPhillips. The plant shut down in late September 2011, due to a low profit margin. In 2012,
downstream assets of
ConocoPhillips were spun off to the newly formed
Phillips 66. In 2012, Phillips 66 sold the refinery to Monroe Energy, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Delta Air Lines. Delta purchased the refinery nearly contemporaneously to
Phil Rinaldi's purchase of the large PES Refinery (former
Sunoco) nearby. Delta stated that it considered the purchase of the refinery an "innovative approach" towards managing fuel expenses. The "mastermind" of the transaction was
Jon Ruggles, and it served as part of the airlines' strategic effort to manage its fuel price risk. The 185,000 barrel-per-day refinery restarted production in September 2012. Delta spent around $100 million to transition 40% of production to jet fuel for its commercial fleet. Under the leadership of then-Delta CEO
Richard Anderson, the Trainer Refinery committed to procuring more oil from domestic companies. In July 2014, it announced a five-year deal with Texas logistics firm, Bridger LLC, who would supply 65,000 barrels of domestic crude a day, or about one-third of the crude oil refined at Trainer. == Awards and recognition ==