2025 Valero Report on Guiding Principles - Flipbook - Page 28
Managing Physical Risks
With re昀椀neries along coastlines and ethanol plants in the U.S. Midwest, Valero has long evaluated and prepared for
physical risks to its facilities from natural disasters and weather events, including hurricanes, tornadoes, 昀氀oods and
other threats. Our emergency preparedness and response programs are focused on the mitigation of these risks.
Enhancing Physical Resilience
In the last 10 years, Valero has invested more than $14.5 billion of capital to sustain its operations, including
turnarounds, catalysts, investments in safety, preventive equipment maintenance, environmental mitigation, and
reliability and regulatory compliance. Sustaining capital is used to keep our facilities performing and to mitigate and
reduce physical risks to our operations and our people, including:
• Infrastructure at raised elevations to reduce the effects of 昀氀ooding
• Upgraded critical buildings, including control rooms and employee shelters resilient to physical risks
• Re昀椀neries designed to withstand hurricane forces, with safe shutdowns and nonessential personnel evacuations
initiated in advance of major hurricanes
Emergency Management
Planning
Our emergency management planning
includes:
• Emergency response plans at
each facility that comply with all
local, state and federal regulations
and are regularly updated with
third-party assessments to ensure
excellence
• Con昀椀rming equipment and
facilities are maintained in fully
functional condition and are
readily available along with trained
personnel when needed for
emergency response
• Ensuring quali昀椀ed emergency
response teams with strong
relationships with third-party
response personnel are present
on-site
• Performing regular drills and
assessments to promote response
readiness and alignment with our
Goal Zero program
• Allocating capital resources to
emergency planning and response
in the strategic planning and
capital budget processes to make
our facilities ef昀椀cient and resilient
• Employing the use of emerging
technologies to optimize decisionmaking and response execution
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Hurricane Preparedness
Valero’s U.S. Gulf Coast facilities are periodically exposed to hurricanes
and other severe weather events, including strong winds, storm surges
and 昀氀ooding. While our re昀椀neries are engineered to withstand these
weather impacts, our management and re昀椀nery leadership teams use
a sophisticated hurricane-speci昀椀c preparedness program to protect
our people and assets. This includes pre-hurricane season activities, as
well as a 昀椀ve-phase process to monitor evolving conditions as the storm
approaches, allowing for adequate time and resources for our employees
and facilities to safely prepare.
phase
1
phase
2
phase
3
phase
4
phase
5
At the start of hurricane season with facility plans
reviewed and updated, verify supplies and begin daily
monitoring.
Assess predicted storm path and potential for
impact.
Determine site(s) that are likely to be signi昀椀cantly
impacted, and activate the Corporate Emergency
Operations Center, operating plan and contingencies, call
center and equipment and service providers.
Execute shutdown, ride-out and/or evacuation
plans.
Initiate post-hurricane response, including the assessment
of impacts on employees, the environment, surrounding
communities and plant operations and implementation of
plans for recovery, support and safe startup of operations.
