ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge Refinery has a deep and legendary history with its original operations beginning in 1909 as part of John D. Rockefeller’s oil giant, Standard Oil Company of Louisiana.
Dave Oldreive
Dave Oldreive, Plant Manager Baton Rouge Refinery, ExxonMobil
During the turn of the twentieth century, Standard selected this site on the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge to build its 1,800 barrels per day operations, which included a refinery and an associated interstate pipeline network.
Today, ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge Refinery Plant Manager Dave Oldreive leads the charge for what is now the fifth-largest refinery in the U.S. It occupies about 2,100 acres, including nearby tank farms, and has an input capacity of 540,000 barrels per day. The refinery is fully integrated with the company’s Baton Rouge Chemical Plant that sits adjacent to the facility, creating efficiencies and the ability to recycle and share molecules from one site to another. In fact, the Chemical and Fuels & Lubricants teams combined into one organization earlier this year; ExxonMobil Product Solutions was formed to engineer, manufacture and deliver the products needed by modern society.
Today, the refinery manufactures about 300 products and grades of products, including motor gasoline, diesel, aviation gasoline, lubricating oils, waxes, petroleum coke, liquefied petroleum gas and chemical feedstock. Despite only coming to this historical site in February 2021, Canada-native Oldreive has 27-plus years manufacturing experience that he believes has helped identify key opportunities and ways to build on the great strengths of the Baton Rouge refinery
“It is such an honor to lead our highly capable team here in Baton Rouge,” Oldreive said.
Oldreive kicked off his career with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Nova Scotia. In the same year he graduated, Oldreive joined Imperial Oil, Canada’s second-largest integrated oil company which is majority-owned by ExxonMobil, as an inspection engineer for the Dartmouth Refinery.
While pursuing his master’s degree in business administration from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Oldreive continued working for Imperial Oil in various leadership roles and later joined ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd, as the business team manager for the Pulau Ayer Chawan Refinery in Singapore. Eventually relocating to California as technical manager at the Torrance Refinery, he then returned to Strathcona Refinery as the operations manager, a position he held until becoming the refinery manager in 2016.
Resilience and prioritization
Being a manager at the fifth-largest refinery in the U.S. “is both challenging and extremely rewarding, and I’m learning new aspects of this business every day,” Oldreive said. “The role requires resilience and the ability to prioritize, as there are many new opportunities on the horizon as we explore new energy products to support climate solutions for the future.”
“Thankfully, I get to work with the best of the best in our industry; the key is to remove barriers to their success and give them the opportunity to deliver excellence,” he said assuredly.
Oldreive is also enjoying growing skills that build relationships with key community stakeholders and elected officials, as the refinery strives to continue being a collaborative neighbor and to bring more investments that complement current operations in Baton Rouge.
Standing out in the crowd
One particular investment which began in 2021 is the Baton Rouge Refinery Integrated Competitiveness (BRRIC) suite of projects, which is a three-year initiative to:
- Modernize the refinery by improving processing capability
- Increase flexibility for meeting energy market demand
- Advance overall site competitiveness
- Install technology for a voluntary 10 percent reduction of volatile organic compound emissions
Oldreive believes BRRIC has helped the refinery stay resilient, retain jobs, support local businesses and boost the construction workforce. “The BRICC project is currently in the construction phase but once in operation, it will improve the competitiveness of our refinery, protecting jobs over the long term,” said Oldreive. “I’m excited to promote further investments that support a more sustainable economy, including a potential advanced recycling opportunity.”
As a global company, ExxonMobil internally competes with its worldwide counterparts to bring new projects and investments to Louisiana and the metro BatonRouge area. In 2021, Louisiana passed legislation to support advanced plastic recycling.“Because of this legislation — an example ofgood economic policy made possible throughcollaboration — our Baton Rouge Complexis now being considered as one site amongseveral in the world for a future plastic wasteadvanced recycling facility,” said Oldreive.“Deploying advanced recycling solutionswill expand the range of materials that canbe recycled and will help maintain the performance of products over multiple recyclingloops. This could translate into lower wastefor society overall.”
This year, ExxonMobil introduced its Advanced Climate Solutions plan, including the ambition to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for operations by 2050, as well as an announcement that the company has committed $15 billion for lower-emission investments through 2027.
Oldreive said the plan will be backed by a comprehensive approach to develop detailed emission-reduction roadmaps for ExxonMobil’s major facilities and assets. He said the company expects to address approximately 90 percent of operations-related greenhouse gas emissions by the end of this year with the remainder being completed in 2023.
Contemplating the refinery’s emission reductions, Oldreive said earlier this year the EPA announced that the Baton Rouge refinery was one of 93 U.S. manufacturing plants earning the agency’s ENERGY STAR certification in 2022. ENERGY STAR certified plants are verified to be among the most energy efficient within their industries.
“Our refinery is one of only three ENERGY STAR industrial sites in the state of Louisiana,” Oldreive said proudly.
Safety and a volunteer spirit
“Safety is always our top priority, and we work diligently every day to ensure safe operations for nearly 3,000 employees and contractors,” said Oldreive. In his first year as plant manager, Oldreive was faced with two unique challenges: first, keeping everyone healthy and safe during the pandemic while still ensuring a fuel supply for the nation, and second, Hurricane Ida.
Before, during and after the storm, teams worked hard to ensure ExxonMobil’s facilities remained stable. While the refinery, lubricants and chemical plants were shut down during the height of the storm, ExxonMobil’s fuel terminal stayed operational, providing more than 25 million gallons of fuel to the region to help with critical response efforts and support a surge in consumer demand.
Hurricane Ida directly impacted many of ExxonMobil’s 6,000 employees and contractors who work at facilities in the Louisiana area, some with significant damage to their homes. “Despite these challenges, our Baton Rouge family delivered an excellent recovery effort, and many volunteered to care for others in the community,” Oldreive fondly recalled.
“In spite of challenging personal circumstances during the storm and in the recovery afterward, no one got hurt at our facilities,” he added. “Our local fuels terminal was always stocked, supplying our local community and emergency responders with fuel.”
Immediately following the storm, the Baton Rouge Fuels Terminal resumed operations, and was the only running supply of fuel to the Baton Rouge community and greater New Orleans area. Oldreive said that each day, employees loaded more than 180 gasoline tanker trucks, the highest ever, for service stations in Louisiana.
In addition to the refinery’s efforts to prevent incidents, Oldreive explained that it also maintains a strong response capability to operational emergencies, should they occur, and places a great emphasis on training for effective response.
To sharpen professional skills, simulated emergencies are conducted annually and employees also participate in training provided by the Local Emergency Planning Committee and the Baton Rouge Area Mutual Aid System.
At the Baton Rouge complex, safety is not just a top priority during a disaster, said Oldreive, but it is fundamental at all times with a clear and simple objective: Nobody gets hurt.
“The safety of our employees, contractors, visitors and the surrounding community is our core value,” said Oldreive. “It’s incredibly rewarding to help this refinery achieve world-class, safe and reliable operations, while being a responsible neighbor and contributing to our community.”
For more information, visit www.exxonmobil.com or call (225) 977-8393.
