Valero Delaware City refinery sold

The long rumored sale of Valero’s Delaware City refinery will be announced later today. European based PFB Energy is the presumed buyer.

The long rumored sale of Valero’s Delaware City refinery has been completed.  PBF Partners has purchased the plant.

Valero shutdown the refinery back in November in an effort to deal with mounting financial losses. Since then, Governor Jack Markell (D) has made finding a buyer for the refinery a priority.  Markell says, “This agreement will help us get people back to work in a way that is responsible, sustainable and makes a real difference for our economy.  This is an example of what our state does best. When we got the news that the refinery would be closing, people really came together to  make every effort to ensure the facility would have a future.”

Last week on WHYY’s “First”, the Governor would only say Valero was in ” high-level negotiations” to sell the plant, but added sale of the plant would be welcome news, if it happened.

“It’s a lot of jobs. It’s a lot of really good paying jobs.  So, we’d be eager to see people put back to work,” said Markell.

550 employees lost their jobs when Valero ended operations in Delaware City.

Governor Markell, in last week’s interview, suggested sale of the refinery could bring many of those jobs back.

“We would expect many, many, many hundreds of people. And they make good salaries, both in terms of operating the refinery, as well as the building trades that would be needed to keep the equipment up to speed and improve the equipment. So, its a big deal on both sides,”  said Markell.  “It’s a lot of jobs.  It’s a lot of tax revenue.  It’s a big deal for the state.”