Transparent…see?

There’s a lot of talk these days by oil and gas companies about their commitment to operational transparency. The word “transparency” has been touted so much lately that—much like the word “content” highlighted in a previous Journally Speaking—the word itself has almost become meaningless.

Nov. 5, 2018

4 min read

Robert Brelsford

Downstream Technology Editor

This is especially true in the context of US downstream operators’ use of the word. Despite highly publicized commitments to the idea of transparency, simply saying the word (or iterations of it) repeatedly or blasting it over one’s various social media channels incessantly, hardly makes the proclaimer transparent. If anything, it creates an unsavory sheen of hypocrisy and very often silliness.

The observation is only magnified by this editor’s recent trip to Santiago for World Refining Association’s (WRA) 2018 Latin America Refining Technology Conference (LARTC), where Chile’s state-owned Empresa Nacional del Petroleo (Enap) subsidiary Enap Refinerías SA hosted attendees to a truly magical—and in every sense, transparent—day at its 104,000-b/d Aconcagua refinery at Concon, in the region of Valparaiso.

An open book

In truth, one could pen a novel-length essay on the welcoming spirit and openness Enap demonstrated during the Aconcagua visit. Upon arriving, we were greeted not by a proverbial and self-important PR team but by Edmundo Piraino, the refinery’s manager himself. After an overview of the refinery by Piraino, other refinery officials—including Ricardo Zuniga (head of maintenance), Patricio Estay (operation integrity manager), and Rodolfo Bickell (head of community division) each made extensive presentations about actual refining operations and how these approaches to operating the plant relate to Enap’s broader strategy of becoming a better refiner and neighbor.

Whereas this type of informational exchange was an exceedingly surprising extravagance all on its own compared to experiences at US manufacturing sites, the next leg of the visit included a visit to the refinery’s real-time control room, followed by an extended drive through the processing units of the complex itself. This was no 30,000-ft flyover…this was the real thing.

While this editor reflected to himself (in awe and gratitude) about the rarity of the experience, fellow US attendees on the tour verbally acknowledged the wonder of it all. “This would never happen at a US refinery,” one mused. “You’d have to sign your life away to see a tenth as much in the US,” another observed. “Why don’t refiners back home roll out the carpet like this?” a third attendee whispered to another walking beside her.

It begs an important question: For all the alleged transparency going on by US operators, why all consummate secrecy?

Take a lesson

Let’s face facts, folks. On the alarmingly rare occasions a US refiner deigns to invite you for an onsite visit to one of its facilities, the most you’re lucky enough to see are rising processing towers in the far-off distance. Very rarely, you may be privileged enough to hop on a bus that takes you on a brief drive along an extremely segregated service road that borders closely the complex’s periphery fence so that—if you really squint—you might be able to catch a slight glimpse of actual human movement near processing units in the horizon that lurks behind another high, barbed-wire topped fencing surrounding the refinery’s heart.

Either way, it leaves much to be desired, and ironically, it only feeds the general misconceptions the US public-at-large has of the refining industry, which is: If they don’t want us to see it, they must have something to hide.

As an OGJ editor, one realizes this isn’t the actual case. With the annual worldwide refining survey now under way, this editor understands more than he’d like to that the cloak-and-dagger strategy of smoke and mirrors surrounding the US refining industry is the result of overpopulated legal teams that do more to harm the general perceptions of the refineries they’re paid to protect than they do to help them.

The most-cited reason for domestic refiners’ inability to pull back the curtain are the litany of safety issues endlessly articulated by their lawyers, and fair enough.

But if WRA and Enap can (seemingly effortlessly) coordinate and execute a such a safe, information-filled experience without fear or even threat of incident, one must wonder what prevents US operators from doing the same?