California Air Resources Board

Phillips 66 Company Settles California Reformulated Gasoline Violation For $200,000

In July 2021, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Phillips 66 Company (Phillips 66) reached a settlement of $200,000 in penalties for violating the California Reformulated Gasoline (CaRFG) Regulations, as codified in California Code of Regulations (CCR), title 13, § 2250 et seq. (13 CCR § 2250 et seq.).

CARB discovered the violation during a routine inspection at the tank farm in Torrance, California in March 2019. A batch of CaRFG exceeded the aromatics limit that was reported in its predictive model. The gasoline was sold, offered for sale, supplied, offered for supply, or transported for eight days. During Phillips 66’s internal investigations, it was determined that the root cause was faulty lab equipment. Their analyzer was reporting readings that were lower than the true values.

Phillips 66 agreed to pay a total of $200,000 for selling, offering for sale, supplying, offering for supply, or transporting CaRFG that failed to conform with the PM flat limit (per day penalty of $25,000). Phillips 66 agreed to pay $100,000 to CARB’s Air Pollution Control Fund, and to allocate $100,000 to a Supplemental Environmental Project with Tree Fresno. Factors that influenced this penalty included Phillips 66’s preventative efforts to ensure future compliance and the minimal harm caused by this violation.

As a preventative effort, Phillips 66 implemented an ASTM D5580 Check Standard on a weekly basis. This is in addition to the already established procedure of running two consecutive Lab Control Standards prior to each analysis.

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