ALON USA is a company that strives to go beyond environmental compliance to environmental excellence. Through the efforts of practices and procedures that are implemented at each facility, ALON USA has continued to meet the commitment of being an environmentally sound company. The following examples demonstrate how ALON USA has continued to strive to be an environmentally conscious company.

Over the past few years, hazardous waste generation from operating activities has been reduced by approximately 40 percent. Aggressive management and the installation of engineering controls are major contributors to this reduction. Projects to replace lines and upgrade tank overflow devices in our tank storage area have reduced the number and volume of spills, which also reduces the waste associated with the spill cleanup. The addition of an environmental segment at our daily operators meeting has increased employee awareness and participation in waste reduction and recycling.

The Big Spring refinery has trended downward in criteria pollutant emissions due to improvements in the operations of our facility. Emissions that are generated from point and nonpoint sources include industrial and nonindustrial stationary equipment such as boilers and heaters, loading facilities, storage vessels containing products, and treatment areas within the facility. ALON USA has implemented several improvements within the refinery to enable us to minimize the pollutants emitted into the atmosphere. Projects include: implementing an entire Leak Detection Monitoring Program, improvements to tank seals and integrity and repairs to product storage tanks, installing an Electric Static Precipitator to collect particulate emissions from the Fluidized Catalytic Cracking operations, installation of NOx controls on heaters in areas of the refinery, and better overall operation and maintenance repairs in all areas of the refinery.

Through aggressive management of the wastewater treatment unit, the Big Spring refinery has reduced the wastewater average annual exceedence over the past several years by 50%. These management practices include better trained operators, better monitoring and the ability to better control the feed to the wastewater unit.