Refinery fires: a cluster of accidents or a maintenance and inspection gap? 13 Aug, 2026 International Environmental Technology Trade press logged eleven refinery and fuel-facility incidents across four continents in roughly sixty days between February and April this year, a run that process safety commentators have called unusual. Some social media and lower quality aggregator accounts have inflated that count to over 45 in a similar window and claimed an "1,800 per cent increase" against historical norms; that figure is not independently verifiable and appears to conflate two very different categories of event, so it should be treated with scepticism rather than repeated as fact. Find your next safety solution in its international directory. War damage is not process failure. The distinction matters. A meaningful share of the widely reported 'surge' is war damage. Ukrainian strikes have repeatedly hit Russian refining capacity, including repeated attacks on the Tuapse export terminal and the NORSI refinery, while the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut global crude throughput by an estimated six million barrels a day as facilities absorb feedstock disruption. These are geopolitical events with safety implications but they say nothing about the condition of process equipment. The accidental cluster. Set those aside, and a smaller cluster of accidental incidents remains genuinely instructive. Chevron's El Segundo refinery in California suffered an explosion on 19 February; Marathon's Texas City refinery caught fire; Pemex's newly commissioned Olmeca refinery in Tabasco, Mexico, saw five workers killed on 17 March after oily water overflowed the site perimeter and ignited, then suffered a second, contained fire in a petroleum coke warehouse on 9 April; Valero's Port Arthur refinery - one of the largest in the US, processing around 435,000 barrels a day - suffered a major explosion and fire in a diesel hydrotreater on 23 March, with full recovery still incomplete months later; and Viva Energy's Geelong refinery in Australia saw flames reaching 60 metres after an April gas leak ignition. A further incident at PBF Energy's Chalmette refinery in Louisiana in May was attributed to a heater failure in a reformer unit. The case for continuous monitoring. Several of these - Chalmette and Olmeca's second fire in particular - were traced to mechanical or equipment failures rather than external causes. Analysts covering the pattern have pointed to a familiar combination: ageing infrastructure, deferred turnarounds and increasingly complex process configurations, in a market environment with thinner margins and fewer operational backups than during past oil-price shocks. That combination raises a legitimate question for the sector's use of condition monitoring as a genuine leading indicator rather than a compliance exercise run to a fixed inspection calendar. Corrosion-under-insulation surveys and guided-wave ultrasonic testing are designed to catch wall-thickness loss on piping and vessels between scheduled turnarounds. Vibration-based predictive maintenance on rotating equipment such as pumps and compressors can flag bearing and seal degradation weeks before failure. Continuous online process analysers tracking stream composition, catalyst activity and heater performance parameters offer the same early-warning function for process upsets that periodic manual inspection, by design, cannot provide between outages. Where turnaround budgets are being deferred, the case for shifting weight towards this kind of continuous, sensor-based monitoring - rather than relying on inspection intervals alone - becomes correspondingly stronger.

How PBF Energy transformed environmental data management with Enablon. Key takeaways. * PBF Energy replaced fragmented, spreadsheet-based reporting with Enablon, creating a single source of truth across six refineries in five states. * Centralizing environmental data on Enablon strengthened audit readiness and supported limited assurance for emissions data. * A dedicated cross-functional team was critical to driving adoption and balancing standardization with site-specific needs. At Wolters Kluwer Enablon's recent SPF26 in Houston, the Environmental Data Manager at PBF Energy shared how the company transitioned from fragmented, spreadsheet-based environmental reporting to a centralized system of record. The presentation covered the challenges of managing emissions data at scale, why PBF Energy invested in a centralized system, and how creating a single source of truth strengthened data quality, audit readiness, and sustainability reporting across a complex, multi-site organization. PBF Energy chose Enablon for environmental disclosures and limited assurance. In 2010, PBF Energy started acquiring petroleum refineries throughout the U.S., eventually growing to six refineries in five states with their own systems for managing data, creating a data silo for every acquisition. Understanding environmental performance across the company was extremely difficult, and a centralized way to organize their environmental data was needed. They decided to implement the Enablon Greenhouse Gas Emissions module to create reports for executive management and board members. The Greenhouse Gas Emissions module also handles reporting for the California Climate Disclosure Rule, which applies not just to PBF Energy's refineries in California, but across the entire company. With locations in California, Ohio, Louisiana, Delaware, and New Jersey, PBF Energy chose Enablon to compile its enterprise environmental data on a cloud platform that makes sharing data seamless. In addition to the emissions reporting requirement, PBF Energy was also interested in obtaining limited assurance of their emissions data. The Enablon Audits module offered them a system that can be used by both external and internal auditors. PBF Energy can now easily organize, centralize, and track environmental data for disclosures on the Enablon platform. The benefits of an integrated, cloud-based data management system. The new data management system has gained the support of data managers at each site because PBF Energy devoted an entire department to the process. The department - composed of a director, data manager, an ESG specialist, and three coordinators across the country - coordinate meetings and schedule conversations with different departments and subject matter experts at each facility. This department trains users in Enablon through a train-the-trainer model. The training coordinators have ownership of and know how to use the Enablon system, interacting one-on-one with data users to help them navigate the process. The coordinators also act as an interface between the on-site SME and the contractor building the Enablon solution, taking a critical workload off the user. The coordinators translate the top-level needs of the organization and work with individual sites to build standardized reporting while still considering site-specific needs. A key benefit of coordinators working with the sites is the ability to refine the reporting and calculation process. Sometimes new environmental data managers will use old spreadsheets they've inherited from a previous manager, not knowing if the calculations and factors are still correct or applicable. In transitioning to the Enablon platform, PBF Energy reviewed how data is calculated and verified calculations are correct, which has helped them obtain limited assurance for their greenhouse gas and emissions inventory data. With limited assurance, PBF Energy can confidently and easily show auditors their data methodology and required calculations. Another Enablon platform benefit for PBF Energy is the ability for individual sites to see how other sites manage their emissions data. Previously, with individual spreadsheets managed by one person, creating a quarterly report for upper management was tedious and difficult. Now the report can be generated directly in the Enablon software. PBF Energy's advice for transforming environmental management. PBF Energy's advice to companies before embarking on a transformational environmental management project is to dedicate a person or a team to the project. Because most departments run lean, subject matter experts or environmental managers do not have time for such a large undertaking. PBF Energy recommends that, to get the results you want, devote a team, even a small one, to interact one-on-one with environmental managers and SMEs. Finally, don't underestimate the importance of dashboards, which makes it easier for environmental managers to validate data after it's been submitted. Managers can get metrics, comparison data, and material inputs in the Enablon platform with just the push of a button. Speak with an Enablon representative today to learn how to transform your environmental management and data systems. Enablon Environmental Management. This natively built solution for comprehensive Environmental Management provides visibility into your environmental impact and streamlines processes associated with air, water, and waste data to comply with local environmental regulations. The best-in-class environmental calculation engine is built to address even the most complex calculations, providing deep, granular data on your site-level emissions with automated data collection, validation, and reporting capabilities. Increase your operational efficiency and reduce your environmental impact with Enablon Environmental Management. Content Marketing Writer at Wolters Kluwer Enablon Joy Inouye has been a Content Marketing Writer for Wolters Kluwer Enablon since 2020. Previously, she worked as a researcher for the Campbell Institute at the National Safety Council where she researched environmental, health, and safety (EHS) best practices in a variety of topic areas including leading indicators, serious injury and fatality (SIF) prevention, contractor safety management, and visual literacy for hazard recognition. Explore related topics. Ready to get started? Talk to one of our experts. Check out these resources Related insights.

PBF Energy: Q2 earnings snapshot. July 30, 2026, 6:49 AM PARSIPPANY, N.J. (AP) - PARSIPPANY, N.J. (AP) - PBF Energy Inc. (PBF) on Thursday reported second-quarter net income of $906.4 million. On a per-share basis, the Parsippany, New Jersey-based company said it had profit of $7.54. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, were $6.22 per share. The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $4.05 per share. The refiner posted revenue of $11.68 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $8.51 billion. Keep Watching Underground pumping station keeps sewage from Potomac River in Alexandria Underground pumping station keeps sewage from Potomac River in Alexandria This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PBF at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PBF