CITGO's Lake Charles Refinery is a modern, deep-conversion facility with a processing capacity of 425,000 - 440,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The fourth largest refinery in the nation, it's particularly suited to process heavy crudes into high-octane, unleaded gasoline. It also produces turbine fuel, heating oils and petrochemicals such as benzene and propylene, which are used to manufacture a wide range of products that people use every day. CITGO's relationship with PDVSA assures the Lake Charles Refinery a stable supply of crude oil.

CITGO's high-tech lubricant and wax facility, is the sixth largest of its kind in the country. It can produce 11,000 barrels of lube oils and wax each day. This CITGO facility maintains the highest quality standards and is recognized by customers as a reliable supplier of high-quality products.

Being a good corporate neighbor means more than running a safe, reliable, environmentally responsible facility it also means giving back to the community. CITGO's economic impact in Southwest Louisiana is considerable, but our commitment goes well beyond simple economics. Both independently and as members of our well-known employee community service organization, Team CITGO, our employees devote thousands of hours each year to charity and community projects. 

• Getting Involved -- Our employees devote thousands of hours each year to charity and community projects like the March of Dimes Walk for Life, the Great Southwest Louisiana Duck Race and Project Role Model. For the past several years, CITGO Lake Charles has also had the most successful United Way campaign in our area. In fact, our combined corporate and employee contributions since 1975 have totaled over $6.8 million.
  
  As a corporation, CITGO supports the Muscular Dystrophy Association by sponsoring the largest single-day MDA fundraiser held in Louisiana each year, the CITGO/MDA Charity Golf Tournament. Since 1985, our employees, contractors, vendors and suppliers have raised more than $2,000,000 to help find a cure for this debilitating childhood disease.   
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• Safety -- Over the past several years, CITGO Lake Charles has developed a reputation as one of the safest facilities in our industry. Employee safety awareness has long been our guiding principle, and we're well on our way to a complex-wide implementation of the Values Based Safety Process, where employees learn to make safety an integral part of every job task.
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• Education -- CITGO Lake Charles is very active in supporting education at all levels in Calcasieu Parish. In addition to the benefits seen by our local schools as a result of the considerable tax base we provide, CITGO has participated as a partner in the Calcasieu Parish school system "Partners in Education" program since 1988. We now serve as a partner for three different Calcasieu Parish public schools. CITGO also supports McNeese State University with a regular endowment to the colleges of Business and Engineering. The Lake Charles Manufacturing Complex is also a strong supporter of Sowela Technical College and its process technology degree program which is a vital resource for us in hiring qualified operators.
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• Our Environment -- Situated near Louisiana's lush coastal wetlands, we are particularly mindful of our pledge to share the environment responsibly. To help assure that the water we return to the environment is clear and clean, CITGO brought our $150 million Waste Water Treatment Plant online in 1995. Our recently completed $250 million Cat Feed Hydrotreater will reduce our air emissions and make our gasolines burn cleaner in the vehicles they power. Most recently, the $100 million installation of the three 230-foot-tall wet gas scrubbers tied to our fluid catalytic cracking units reduces particulate and sulfur dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. None of these systems will produce a single gallon of gasoline, but they help us protect our precious environmental resources from contamination.