FAQ: What Kind of Name is PES? Part I.
Philadelphia’s refinery has not always been called Philadelphia Energy Solutions. In fact, it’s only been called PES for seven years. Control of PES has shifted from one company to another for the entirety of its existence, and each shift -- pretty much across the board -- has heralded the application of a new name. And as the names changed, so did the size of the refinery they described. The 1,400 acre complex we know today as PES started out as a four-still operation in Point Breeze -- a far cry from anything worthy of the ‘complex’ qualifier.
The refinery that exists today is the product of 150-years’-worth of mergers and acquisitions, which partially explains why the facility is split into three parts. The North Yard, Point Breeze, and Girard Point were once distinct commercial entities.
I know: you want the names, you want the history. Without further ado, I give you both:
The first petroleum business to operate in South Philly was called Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company, situated within a small portion of today’s Point Breeze site. Atlantic Storage did not refine petroleum; it - say it with me - stored it. That name stuck from 1866 to just before 1870, around the time that its owners realized how much money they were missing out on (and that it was costlier to transport and store refined oil than to transport and refine raw petroleum).
Following this entrepreneurial breakthrough, Atlantic’s owners reorganized the site as a refinery under a new name: Atlantic Refining Company. This name referred to the same area of land in Point Breeze until 1878. That year, under the control of Standard Oil, which had bought the refinery in 1874 (I agree, really confusing, but that’s kind of the whole point of this part), the refinery acquired the area now known as the North Yard.
So in 1878, the refinery was called Atlantic Refining Company and it comprised Point Breeze and the North Yard.
The name ‘Atlantic Refining Company’ proved to have incredible staying power. Surviving the dissolution of Standard Oil Trust in 1911, it lasted until 1966 -- just under a century. After merging with something called the Richfield Oil Company, the refinery became Atlantic Richfield Company, or ARCO for short. Under ARCO’s control, all refining operations were removed from the North Yard and consolidated in Point Breeze (also known as the South Yard). ARCO lasted until 1985, when the refinery was sold to an oil trader named John Deuss, who dubbed the facility Atlantic Refining and Marketing Corporation.
Atlantic Refining and Marketing Corporation lasted until 1988, when John Deuss sold the refinery (still just Point Breeze and the North Yard) to Sunoco. Then, in 1994, Sunoco bought a refinery at Girard Point from Chevron, consolidating it with Point Breeze and the North Yard. Sunoco referred to the complex as its Philadelphia refinery, but it was commonly known to Philadelphians as the Sunoco refinery.
So, the refinery became the three-site complex we know today in 1994, 128 years after its official inception.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
On its website, PES boasts that the South Philadelphia complex “has been ‘part of the neighborhood’ in South Philadelphia for over 150 years.” Claims like this completely misrepresent reality. Setting aside the suggestion that South Philadelphians feel affectionately towards the carcinogenic bomb-factory taking up all of their riverside property, “the PES complex” has not existed for 150 years. As shown, the complex has only existed in its full, three-zone state since Sunoco bought Girard Point in 1994.
This may seem nitpicky, but it really isn’t. Why? Because the refinery’s historic stature has veiled its operations in a glorifying mythos, and that mythos works to undermine the truth. And the truth is little more than this: 150 years after the first distillation unit was built at Point Breeze, Philadelphia’s refinery is now so much bigger and so much more dangerous than it used to be that it emits 537,758 more pounds of toxic chemicals than the next biggest single polluter in Philadelphia.
But -- wait -- where did the name Philadelphia Energy Solutions come from?