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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Foreign-Trade Zones Board
[Docket 60-96]


Foreign-Trade Zone 61, San Juan, Puerto Rico Proposed Foreign-
Trade Subzone, Puerto Rico Sun Oil Company, (Oil Refinery Complex),
Yabucoa, Puerto Rico

    An application has been submitted to the Foreign-Trade Zones Board
(the Board) by the Commercial and Farm Credit and Development
Corporation of Puerto Rico, grantee of FTZ 61, requesting special-
purpose subzone status for the oil refinery complex of Puerto Rico Sun
Oil Company (wholly-owned subsidiary of Sun Company, Inc.), located in
Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. 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 19, 1996.

The refinery complex (85,000 BPD, 340 employees) is located on a 241-acre site at Route 901, Km. 2.7 and Yabucoa Harbor, Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, some 45 miles southeast of San Juan.

The refinery is used to produce fuel products and petrochemical feedstocks. Fuel products include gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, distillates, residual fuels, naphthas, intermediate gasoline feedstocks, and lubricating base oils. Petrochemical feedstocks and refinery by-products that are or could be produced at the refinery include benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylene, propylene, cumene, carbon black oil, ethane, propane, butane, petroleum coke, paraffin waxes, petroleum extracts, asphalt and sulfur. All of the crude oil (90 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 crude oil. The duty rates on crude oil 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 30, 1996. Rebuttal comments in response to material submitted during the foregoing period may be submitted during the subsequent 15-day period (to October 15, 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, Room G-55, Federal Building, Chardon Avenue, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00918 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 22,1996. John J. Da Ponte, Jr., Executive Secretary. [FR Doc. 96-19341 Filed 7-29-96; 8:45 am]