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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE Foreign-Trade Zones Board [Docket 55-96] Foreign-Trade Zone 2, New Orleans, Louisiana; Proposed Foreign- Trade Subzone; Murphy Oil USA, Inc. (Oil Refinery Complex), St. Bernard Parish, LAAn application has been submitted to the Foreign-Trade Zones Board (the Board) by the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans, grantee of FTZ 2, requesting special-purpose subzone status for the oil refinery complex of Murphy Oil USA, Inc., located in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The application was submitted pursuant to the provisions of the Foreign-Trade Zones Act, as amended (19 U.S.C. 81a- 81u), and the regulations of the Board (15 CFR part 400). It was formally filed on July 1, 1996.
The refinery complex (105,000 BPD, 242 employees) is located on a 620-acre site at 2500 E. St. Bernard Highway on the Mississippi River, St. Bernard Parish (Meraux area), Louisiana, some 7 miles southeast of New Orleans.
The refinery is used to produce fuels and petrochemical feedstocks. Fuels produced include gasoline, jet fuel, distillates, residual fuels and naphthas. Petrochemical feedstocks and refinery by-products include methane, ethane, propane, propylene, butane, petroleum coke, asphalt and sulfur. Some 92 percent of the crude oil (96 percent of inputs), and some feedstocks and motor fuel blendstocks are sourced abroad.
Zone procedures would exempt the refinery from Customs duty payments on the foreign products used in its exports. On domestic sales, the company would be able to choose the finished product duty rate (nonprivileged foreign status--NPF) on certain petrochemical feedstocks and refinery by-products (duty-free) instead of the duty rates that would otherwise apply to the foreign-sourced inputs (e.g., crude oil, natural gas condensate). The duty rates on inputs range from 5.25 cents/barrel to 10.5 cents/barrel. The application indicates that the savings from zone procedures would help improve the refinery's international competitiveness.
In accordance with the Board's regulations, a member of the FTZ Staff has been designated examiner to investigate the application and report to the Board.
Public comment is invited from interested parties. Submissions (original and 3 copies) shall be addressed to the Board's Executive Secretary at the address below. The closing period for their receipt is [60 days from date of publication]. Rebuttal comments in response to material submitted during the foregoing period may be submitted during the subsequent 15-day period (to September 24, 1996).
A copy of the application and accompanying exhibits will be available for public inspection at each of the following locations:
U.S. Department of Commerce, Export Assistance Center, Hale Boggs Federal Building, 501 Magazine Street, Room 1043, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130 Office of the Executive Secretary, Foreign-Trade Zones Board, Room 3716, U.S. Department of Commerce, 14th & Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20230
Dated: July 2, 1996. Dennis Puccinelli, Acting Executive Secretary. [FR Doc. 96-17678 Filed 7-10-96; 8:45 am]