The Crude Oil Opportunity Team’s purpose is to:

• Identify opportunities and any technical concerns associated with the new crude slate
• Propose monitoring and mitigation plans for each new crude oil
• Expedite and oversee the acceptance of new crude oils into the Sunoco refining system

Initially, the team focused on crude oils that were not run at specific Sunoco refineries due to quality or logistical issues, but could be run with operational rather than capital improvements. Future goals for the team include:

• Identifying new crude oil opportunities that will require capital improvement
• Ensuring these investments will be compatible with both the company’s strategic vision and future fuel and environmental regulations

The team’s success in 2008 was demonstrated by:

• Facilitating running 24 new crude oil types.
• Nearly doubling the number North Atlantic sweet crude oils available for use by Northeast Refining. The availability was increased from 5.5 million barrels per day to 10.1 million barrels per day.
• Building the company’s crude oil portfolio so all Nigerian crudes can be replaced with alternatives if cost and supply occur with Nigerian crude.
• Building an OEMS crude oil approval process that allows the evaluation of crudes for purchase in one day; in the past, the process took a month.
• Streamlining the Management of Change process.
• Test-running new crude oils and reviewing their impact on refinery operations/equipment.
• Integrating resources that have allowed us to negotiate and bring in crudes that we would not have run previously by including quality limits in the crude contract. Because the team had access to resources from the trading floor, to the ASTG lab for priority analysis, and to financial analysis, they were able to drive a truly data-based decision on new crude selection and to monetarily quantify any risks as part of the decision process.
• Researching and proposing capital projects to expand the use of different crude oils, including longer-term capital projects to expand the ability to run more of the crude oils added in 2008 and other crude oil opportunities.

The Crude Oil Opportunity Team’s efforts provided Sunoco with more flexibility in the event that a large supplier such as Nigeria develops supply or cost issues. The team has developed a well-defined, fully-integrated approval process allowing Sunoco to take advantage of opportunity crudes.

In 2009, the Team plans to further expand the reviewed crudes to include more than 90 percent of the available North Atlantic Sweet crudes and further expand the types of crude oils that can be run at the Toledo and Tulsa refineries. Additionally, projects enabling the further expansion of the variety of crude oils utilized will be pursued. Efforts will be coordinated with the Strategic Plan to develop medium- and long-term projects for processing new crude oil slates as they become available.