Valero 2010 Annual Report Download - page 10

8OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
At Valero, our goal always is to be the best of the
best, and that especially is true with operational
excellence. We strive to be in the rst-quartile of
reners in industry benchmark surveys across all
areas of operations, from energy eciency to cash
operating expense to process safety and reliability
metrics such as outages and mechanical availability.
Foremost, Valero recognizes that a reliable operation
is a safe operation. Valero reneries have made
signicant progress in key process safety and
reliability measures, positioning the company to take
full advantage of economic recovery and emerge as
a stronger industry competitor.
Our company has sharply reduced major unplanned
renery shutdowns in recent years. For particularly
high-impact outages bearing a cost of more than
$1 million, Valero’s continuing U.S. renery
operations cut unscheduled shutdowns by nearly
70 percent from 2007 through 2010.
The progress is the result of intense process safety
and reliability assessments to identify areas and
issues that could keep a unit, process or plant out
of service. The eort rst was piloted in November
2008, and expanded in 2009, under Valero’s
Commitment to Excellence Management System
(CTEMS), a comprehensive program that provides a
standardized framework for our reneries to achieve
operational excellence. The assessments have given
the company a solid strategy to eliminate risks and
compete in tough market environments.
In 2010, Valero marked the second anniversary of
CTEMS and saw improvement in areas ranging from
change management to process hazard analysis
and preventive maintenance. Eorts at the reneries
continue to assess existing programs against
expectations dened in CTEMS, and establish plans
PATH TO
EXCELLENCE
Operational Excellence
OUR GOAL IS TO BE A FIRST-QUARTILE REFINER IN INDUSTRY BENCHMARK SURVEYS.