Tesoro Refining and Marketing Company’s petroleum refinery in Mandan, North Dakota, was issued its Title V air quality permit in December 2003. Among the hundreds of requirements for this relatively small refinery was the obligation to certify compliance in December with all permit requirements by mid-February 2004. Given the short timeframe and tight budget for completing the initial certification, Tesoro sought an approach that would straightforwardly integrate all air permit compliance requirements into the refinery’s already established business tools. Such an approach would yield immediate benefits, such as: 1) Precluding the need for training of any new software, 2) Minimizing unnecessary delays in developing and populating a requirements database, 3) Providing flexibility for the staff engineers, who are already familiar with the refinery’s software applications, to further customize and build upon a compliance management solution, and 4) Allowing easy transfer of data and results electronically to other entities, including regulatory agencies. Tesoro Mandan utilizes spreadsheets that are organized consistent with the Title V permit and are automated to collect data through the plant information server. The spreadsheet tools serve not only as the data collection and quality assurance check, but they also supply documentation needed for the refinery’s periodic compliance monitoring reports. Compliance is managed on a day-to-day basis using both the refinery’s existing e-mail software to notify staff of tasks to be completed and a customized process book library of data used to routinely check key process parameters for compliance. Small refineries may not have the time or money to purchase and implement a new, expensive software system. Tesoro Mandan chose a hands-on approach by customizing their existing business tools as an interim solution to ongoing management of air quality compliance, until such time that new enterprise-wide business software tools offer flexibility to further develop environmental compliance management.
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