Delaware City refinery to add hundreds of jobs

The hiring process is already underway at the facility that was left for dead just a few months ago. The refinery’s new owners say it will take hundreds of workers to get the facility ready to reopen, and hundreds more once the plant restarts.

The reopening of the Delaware City refinery will create up to 700 high-paying, full-time jobs, according to the chairman of the company that now owns the facility.

PBF Energy Partners completed the purchase of the refinery from Valero Energy Corporation earlier this week for $220 million.

PBF Chairman Thomas D. O’Malley says there will be about 500 full-time jobs at the refinery and an additional 175 to 200 full-time “outside” positions. He says 60 to 70 people have already been hired.

“These are not low-wage jobs,” he said. “An average cost per person, including benefits, probably exceeds 100 thousand dollars.”

O’Malley says it will take an additional 700 people to get the refinery ready to reopen. Modifications to the massive plant will cost about $130 million, he says, and will take several months.

“It’s not that we’re adding any significant parts or pieces to the refinery,” O’Malley said. “It’s that we’re doing a complete maintenance job in a thoughtful way and in a way that we’re not pressed for time.”

The facility is scheduled to restart in the spring of 2011.

Valero announced in November that it would halt operations at the refinery and lay off 550 workers. O’Malley is the former chairman and CEO of Premcor, which sold the refinery to Valero in 2005.