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FTZ Staff Contact Information

last update: September 2002

  
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Foreign-Trade Zones Board
[Docket 58-96]


Foreign-Trade Zone 86, Tacoma, Washington, Proposed Foreign-Trade
Subzone; Texaco, Inc. (Oil Refinery Complex), Skagit County, Washington

    An application has been submitted to the Foreign-Trade Zones Board
(the Board) by the Port of Tacoma (Washington), grantee of FTZ 86,
requesting special-purpose subzone status for the oil refinery complex
of Texaco Refining and Marketing, Inc. (wholly-owned subsidiary of
Texaco, Inc.), located in Skagit County (Anacortes area), Washington.
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 17, 1996.

    The refinery complex (143,000 BPD, 400 employees), including a
pipeline corridor and marine terminal, is located on a 640-acre site at
600 South Texas Road, Skagit County, Washington, on the Puget Sound,
some 2 miles east of Anacortes (60 miles north of Seattle).

    The refinery is used to produce fuels and petrochemical feedstocks.
Fuels produced include gasoline, jet fuel, distillates, residual fuels
and naphthas. Petrochemicals and refinery by-products include methane,
ethane, propane, propylene, ethylene, benzene, toluene, xylene, butane,
petroleum coke, asphalt and sulfur. Some 19 percent of the crude oil
(97 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
September 24, 1996. Rebuttal comments in response to material submitted
during the foregoing period may be submitted during the subsequent 15-
day period (to October 9, 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, 2001 6th Ave.,
Suite 650, Seattle, Washington 98121
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 18, 1996.
John J. Da Ponte, Jr.,
Executive Secretary.
[FR Doc. 96-19063 Filed 7-25-96; 8:45 am]